Guardians of this precious Region?
Rainbow Inn, Greenwood Lake.Yesterday, the Highlands Council approved the draft Regional Master Plan. The Council’s approval followed the rejection of a series of amendments offered by the minority environmental faction of the Council (i.e. Dillingham, Carlucchio, Pasquarelli). A series of major amendments were offered to repair some of the plan’s more egregious flaws.
But the battle is not over yet. The Highlands Act provides power to Governor Corzine to veto any action of the Council to protect statewide interests – so the Regional Plan does not become legally enforceable until it is approved by the Governor.
Greenwood lakeI attended this historical event as witness, having been directly and intimately involved in drafting the Highlands Act. Unfortunately, I share the sentiments of my good friends and longtime Highlands advocates Ross Kushner (Pequannock River Coalition), Robin O’Hearn (Skylands CLEAN) and Jeff Tittel of NJ Sierra Club: what should have been a day of celebration was instead a DEEP disappointment.
Wanaque ReservoirFor those interested in media’s news coverage of the Council’s deliberations, protective amendments that were voted down, and public testimony, please see this article:
Highlands Council adopts landmark Master Plan
http://www.mycentraljersey.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080717/NEWS/807170378
Round Valley ReservoirFor those interested in other views and Highlands photo’s see:
Potemkin Plan – Highlands Plan an empty shell
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2008/02/potemkin_plan_highlands_plan_a.html
Until I can calm down, collect my thoughts, develop my analysis, and appropriately respond to the Council’s vote, I thought I’d share pictures of members of the Highlands Council and staff:
John Weingart, Chairman
Jack Shrier, Vice-Chairman
Bill Cogger, Treasurer
Councilwoman Calbrese
Councilwoman Kovach
Councilwoman Letts
Councilman Alstede
Councilman Vetrano
Councilwoman Carlucchio
Councilwoman Way
Councilman Dillingham
(Council members Whitenack and Pasquarelli are not shown)
Eileen Swan, Executive Director, and Tom Borden, Esq. Counsel and Deputy Director 
Highlands Council staffers stand for recognition.
Ross Kushner, Pequannock River Coalition, testifies
And I see they are drinking bottled water.
yes, unprovincial, you observe a cruel irony.
The truly scary thing is that those water bottles were not placed there for ironic or satirical effect – e.g. along the lines of the recent controversial New Yorker magazine cover depicting the Obama’s as terrorists.
The staffers who put those bottles on the table were CLUELESS that this was a bad thing to do.
The Council members were CLUELESS that bottled water might just contradict their fundamental mission which is to protect Highlands water.
CLUELESS, INSENSITIVE and NONE TOO BRIGHT.
Bill Wolfe (the real one – who posts as nohesitation not he faux-poser above) is a hero and a patriot! Viva la Revolution!
The Highlands Act was a farce and cynical exercise from the moment it was adopted by the ignominious McGreevy administration. Remember the other side of the Highlands coin was the “Fast Track Bill”. It was a ploy to give a corrupt pay-to-play based Democratic administration regulatory power over a largely republican area of the state while giving removing DEP reviews for the rapacious development ready to go in the rest of the state. Soon after the adoption of the Highlands Act, Dem operatives like Jim Florio were opening law office branches in the Highlands touting their abilites to negotiate the Highlands rules for would be developers. The appointment of John Weingart as the chairman of the council should have been clue enough what the real deal was. His record as the decade long head of DEP’s CAFRA program regulating development at the Jersey shore speaks for itself. The pols gave just enough lip service to string along Titel and Dillingham, but clearly they got suckered. When are these guys going to get smart and not settled for the bones the pols throw them?
Jerseyswamp2 – I strongly disagree that HL Act was a farce from the get go.
There are incredible powers in that Act – I wrote many of them. For example, the phrase “deep aquifer recharge” to protect groundwater authorized DEP to adopt HL regulations implementing the Act mandate 88 acre lot sizes (for septic development in forested lands) and 25 acre for agricultural lands. (in 400,000 acre preservation area).
The Act mandated 300 foot buffers and prohibited extension o water and sewer infrastructure. The Act provided regulatory authority over previously unregulated plants and ecological communities. The Act established new cumulative impact standard, a site-wide natural resource assessment, and lowered the review threshold for water allocation permits to 50,000 GPD. I could go on.
These are all extraordinary powers.
Yes, there are severe mapping errors and many loopholes that were inserted after the introduced version of the bill – political deals to get the Act through a corrupt legislature.
But the Council dropped the ball badly – the RMP could have closed many of these loopholes and strengthened the DEP regulations. Instead, more loopholes were created and DEP rules weakened.
And while I agree that the Fast Track law was a disaster, I don’t buy the myth that HL Act was a quid pro quo or related to FT.
Jerseyswamp2 – I strongly disagree that HL Act was a farce from the get go.
There are incredible powers in that Act – I wrote many of them. For example, the phrase “deep aquifer recharge” to protect groundwater authorized DEP to adopt HL regulations implementing the Act mandate 88 acre lot sizes (for septic development in forested lands) and 25 acre for agricultural lands. (in 400,000 acre preservation area).
The Act mandated 300 foot buffers and prohibited extension o water and sewer infrastructure. The Act provided regulatory authority over previously unregulated plants and ecological communities. The Act established new cumulative impact standard, a site-wide natural resource assessment, and lowered the review threshold for water allocation permits to 50,000 GPD. I could go on.
These are all extraordinary powers.
Yes, there are severe mapping errors and many loopholes that were inserted after the introduced version of the bill – political deals to get the Act through a corrupt legislature.
But the Council dropped the ball badly – the RMP could have closed many of these loopholes and strengthened the DEP regulations. Instead, more loopholes were created and DEP rules weakened.
And while I agree that the Fast Track law was a disaster, I don’t buy the myth that HL Act was a quid pro quo or related to FT.
Oh, I forgot the HL Act power to map “preservation zones” where all development is prohibited.
The Council could have used this broadly but instead has not even released alleged maps of these zones.
From what I remember of it, the original Highlands Act was a very powerful document indeed, and nowhere did it mention “balancing” development with water quality and water preservation.
And yet I’ve read in almost every article analyzing the RMP that it was created to fulfill the Highlands Act’s balancing mission.
One takeaway from this fiasco is that “balance” is a dirty word–not in the cute, sort of naughty sense of the late, great George Carlin’s “7 Words,” but a truly despicable, nasty, mean, harmful word that should never be used in polite company.
The Highlands Act was not created to balance anything, it was created to save our water, and in saving our water to save us humans, the natural world that sustains us, and the biodiversity so necessary for that sustenance.
isjborn1 – yes, you are absolutely correct.
The Highlands Council abdicated its responsibility and badly misconstrued its mission and legal mandate to preserve what’s left of the Highland landscape and protect, enhance, and restore its water resources (quantity and quality).
They hid behind that misleading word “balance” – and duped the public and the press in the process.
The 1985 State Planning Act, which created the State Plan, requires “balance” of competing development and environmental objectives.
In contrast, the Highlands Act explicitly rejects this approach, never uses the word “balance”, and requires preservation and water protection.
Call Corzine to demand a Veto – 609-292-6000 – go viral with that.