DEP Logging Contradicts Climate Goals And Public Trust Obligations
Harms Wildlife, Water Quality, Ecosystems And Public Uses
In written comments on the DEP’s 2025 – 26 Plan, NJ Forest Watch and the NJ Highlands Coalition blasted the Murphy DEP continued expansion of a failed logging project in the Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area (WMA):
Our Highlands public forests, including Sparta Mountain, were acquired through 100% Green Acres funding and are held in the Public Trust. As such, they should be preserved for the benefit of the public, not exploited for the purported purpose of creating habitat for a few species of birds that are not threatened or endangered while damaging habitat for many other birds, other animals, and plants, or to obtain grant funding. It is profoundly concerning to observe the unscientific degradation of these vital natural resources, particularly when the very agency tasked with their protection is overseeing such actions.
Given the climate change crisis, increased drought conditions, and saltwater intrusion in aquifers in other parts of the state, it is even more crucial to protect our Highlands forests. The NJDEP is disregarding the significant ecological harm caused by logging activities in ALL of these “Practice Plans” in the Highlands, which include soil degradation, soil compaction, loss of carbon in soil exposed to the air, pH changes in the soil, increases in invasive species, increases in deer browse, harm to native plants and species, loss of carbon sequestration, and the disruption and degradation of the entire ecosystem biodiversity. …
These negative impacts on storage and sequestration of carbon stand in direct conflict with the statements from Governor Murphy and Commissioner LaTourette that climate change is an existential threat to the State. and State objectives to increase sequestration from all land sources by 33% by 2050.
I wrote to my forest protector friends and DEP to support these criticisms and noted that additional important issues of concern relate to water quality and huge loopholes in DEP regulations with respect to logging:
1) The 1995 outdated DEP Forestry And Wetlands BMP manual provides loopholes from DEP stream buffer and wetlands regulations for forest management projects. I recall that DEP agreed to reform some aspects to address these huge gaps (but limited to the Sparta Mt WMA Plan, not Statewide).
Serious problems are not even close to being resolved on these important issues.
2) While this USGS study in the Catskills involved clearcuts and more intensive logging, I spoke with the USGS prime researcher who stated that the study’s findings were relevant to the NJ Highlands, given similar characteristics.
DEP failed to address this USGS science and particularly this finding in a petition for rulemaking I filed (they never mentioned the USGS finding of “100% trout mortality”!). DEP still has no water quality or biological monitoring in place to assess these impacts, a situation that I find unacceptable and simply astonishing, see:
“Clearcutting caused a large release of nitrate (NO3 -) from watershed soils and a concurrent release of inorganic monomeric aluminum (Alim), which is toxic to some aquatic biota. The increased soil NO3 – concentrations measured after the harvest could be completely accounted for by the decrease in nitrogen (N) uptake by watershed trees, rather than an increase in N mineralization and nitrification. The large increase in stream water NO3 – and Al concentrations caused 100-percent mortality of caged brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) during the first year after the clearcut and adversely affected macroinvertebrate communities for 2 years after the harvest.”
How can USGS scientific findings like that be completely ignored by DEP?
For about a decade now, DEP has largely ignored public comments and concerns in Sparta Mt. WMA and their logging on public lands, so I’m not expecting DEP reply. But we’ll let you know if they do.