The Three Legged Stool Has Collapsed
Toothless NJ State Plan And A Passive – Even Pro-Development – DEP Get Another Pass
Adding insult to injury, this NJCF Report was released on the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Highlands Act. That’s a milestone they should have used to launch the “final land use battle” to preserve 100% of the remaining farms and forests.
Conservationists used to advocate that the practice of conservation relied on a “three legged stool”: preservation, planning & regulation, and private land stewardship.
They long ago abandoned work on the planning and regulation leg, and as a result, just like a muscle that goes unused, it atrophied and the stool was destabilized and weakened.
The NJ State Plan, the DEP land use and water resource planning programs, and the State’s leading policy, planning and regulatory role all eroded like the NJ shore after a nor’easter.
But, while conservationists abandoned work on the planning and regulatory leg, they at least remained rhetorically committed to it.
That rhetorical commitment tethered the conservation organizations to the issue, and forced them to remain engaged in the regulatory battles at DEP and land use campaigns that other more aggressive environmental groups mounted. That’s how we got the Highlands Act – a planning and regulatory model that the conservation community initially OPPOSED and only reluctantly joined after the initial hard political work was done by other groups and Governor McGreevey and his DEP Commissioner publicly backed the campaign. (I even had to shame them into opposing DEP’s proposed clearcut of that magnificent sycamore forest on Bulls Island!)
But no more.
Now, going beyond neglect, they’ve abandoned it completely and actively work to undermine planning and regulation, with bullshit like this from a NJ Conservation Foundation Report released yesterday:
Preservation priorities must also include wetlands, wetland buffers, floodplains, and flood hazard areas. Although environmental regulations protect these lands, many are privately owned and vulnerable to encroachments and violations. Permanent preservation through public ownership and strong, enforceable deed restrictions are required to fully preserve these lands.
(notice that there is no demand to strengthen regulations, pressure DEP to more aggressively enforce, or criticize DEP for these regulatory failures).
In addition to undermining regulation, the NJCF Report totally ignores critical issues. Those “preservation priorities” are far too narrow in scope and ignore forests and impacts of climate change. Similarly omitted, the environmental regulations also include the Highlands RMP and Pinelands CMP.
Adding insult to injury, this NJCF Report was released on the 20th anniversary of the passage of the Highlands Act. That’s a milestone they should have used to launch the “final land use battle” to preserve 100% of the remaining farms and forests.
And, as I’ve written here scores of times, the NJCF Report ignores the current policy context.
Specifically, it ignores the “deregulatory ratchet” I’ve recently written about.
It ignores a passive and sometimes explicitly pro-development Murphy administration and DEP. This DEP Commissioner has made outrageous policy statements (e.g. DEP role not to block development, reliance on buyer beware over regulation, et al) that should have been condemned. DEP has issued development approvals that should have been condemned (e.g. millions of square feet of warehouse development, etc). DEP has undermined the Pinelands Commission, the CMP, and promoted off road vehicle destruction and the logging of Pinelands forests. DEP has undermined the Highlands Council and blocked them from adopting more protective forests regulations. DEP has approved Natural Resource Damage settlements with corporate polluters that not only fail to recover money and restore tremendous ecological damage, but promote development! (e.g. BASF and American Cyanamid). DEP has approved a massive development along a C1 reservoir tributary that relies on a harebrained wastewater plan. DEP has delayed and failed to propose effective regulations and has done nothing but issue a series of process oriented nothing-burgers, see:
None of that has been criticized by NJCF and their fellow conservationists.
It ignores DEP’s failure to adopt real climate regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of the climate emergency.
It ignores Gov. Murphy’s failure to lead – he is the first Democratic Governor I am aware of that has no environmental legacy commitments or accomplishments (his climate and energy programs are largely rhetorical and his multiple self congratulatory Executive Orders, which read like press releases, are toothless).
Again, the conservationists have abandoned not only planning and regulation, but the necessary hard work of political accountability. They prefer playing nice, cozying up to political power, working the behind the scenes inside game with DEP and “stakeholder process” – a failed approach that even their own Report documents in terms of environmentally sensitive lands lost to development.
Complete reliance on voluntary approaches, e.g. willing sellers and friendly politicians and DEP Commissioners – as the NJCF approach does – is a fatally flawed fools errand.
That approach not only resulted in devastating losses of environmentally sensitive lands, it gave us the “Keep It Green” campaign that produced the compromised small bore current program, which slashed historical Green Acres funding and defunded parks maintenance and other DEP water and toxic site cleanup programs.
As a result of the Keep It Green campaign, not only has funding been slashed, but there is now a $720 million deficit in State Parks maintenance and capital projects, see:
But you’d never know about any of that by reading the NJCF Report – or the coverage of it by NJ Spotlight.