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PPA and Pinelands Advocacy Overview

The Pinelands Preservation Alliance advocates for Pinelands preservation before government agencies like the New Jersey Pinelands Commission and seeks to educate the public about the Pinelands and the threats facing its natural resources.

Advocacy work is focused on four basic themes:

1. Monitoring public agencies, especially the Pinelands Commission,
2. Protecting the water quality of the Pine Barrens ecosystem,
3. Protecting the water supply embedded in the aquifers underlying the Pinelands and sustaining both the human and the natural communities of this region, and
4. Improving habitat protection for the distinctive, rare, threatened and endangered plant and animal species of the Pinelands.

Monitoring public agencies

PPA monitors the Pinelands Commission, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and other agencies whose actions affect the Pinelands. We review major development applications submitted to the Pinelands Commission and other proposals that affect the Pinelands environment.

We press the government to apply environmental regulations consistently in favor of preserving the region's land and water. In most cases, we are able to work cooperatively to ensure the Pinelands Commission and other agencies reject or modify development proposals that violate environmental protections. In some cases, we enter lawsuits on the side of the government when developers sue, while in some cases we bring legal challenges against government agencies when they fail to implement the law consistently.

PPA works to involve citizens in this monitoring effort by notifying residents when they could get involved in issues affecting their area and through our broader Pinelands Watch Network.

Appointments to the Pinelands Commission

[+ ZOOM] Pinelands Commission meeting. © PPA

The Pinelands Commission is the government agency primarily responsible for implementing the Pinelands Protection Act and the state's Pinelands protection programs. The Commission is composed of 15 volunteer Commissioners, plus a professional staff who serve the Commission. One of PPA's most important jobs is to advocate for strong, conservation-minded appointments to the Pinelands Commission. Of the 15 Commissioners, seven are nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the state Senate; seven are appointed from the seven counties that have land in the Pinelands; and one is a nominee of the United States Secretary of Interior. PPA tries to ensure the Governor and the Counties, as well as the Secretary of Interior, appoint the right people to fill these critical positions.

Regional Growth Area issues

For the last few years, the Pinelands Commission has struggled to respond to problems arising in certain Regional Growth Areas, especially in Atlantic County . Regional Growth Areas are the areas designated in the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan for growth, as opposed to conservation. Problems in these areas include poorly designed, sprawling development patterns, rapid growth of municipal expenses and taxes associated with accelerating development, and increasing pressure on heavily exploited aquifers for water supply.

[+ ZOOM] Development in and around the Pinelands threaten water systems and habitat. © Kevin Sparkman

The Pinelands Commission recently reduced the number of housing units certain towns are required to provide for in their zoning, but approved revised master plans that provided no better community design measures. The Commission initiated the Pinelands Excellence program, in which two municipalities are working with outside consultants to create more creative master plans and design standards. While these steps are positive, they have not yet addressed the long-term questions facing the growth areas as a whole.

PPA has pressed the Pinelands Commission, DEP and local governments to convene a broadly-based, long range water supply planning effort for the Atlantic City metropolitan area. To date, state government has not taken any steps to begin such a planning process despite broad recognition of the need to do so.

Water quality

Over the past several years, the Pinelands Commission science program has documented the loss of Pine Barrens aquatic habitats as contamination with fertilizers, septic effluent and liming compounds associated with suburban development and upland farming have altered native Pine Barrens water chemistry in the most developed Pinelands watersheds. Water quality changes bring non-Pine Barrens plant and animal species, frequently displacing native species. PPA views this transformation as a fundamental threat to the long-term survival of the Pine Barrens and to the region’s ability to serve as a refuge for the many rare and distinctive species that live here.

PPA is pressing the Pinelands Commission to create a task force and adopt a strategy to address this issue. The challenge is admittedly great, since the Pinelands Plan calls for a good deal of development, large areas in and around the Pinelands are already developed, it is not clear how development and farming can be designed to avoid these impacts, and, at this point, it is not clear how this process of habitat alteration is spreading over time. While individual Commissioners are beginning to express their concern with this problem, the Commission has not taken action on it.

Water supply

PPA is working hard to prevent ecologically harmful allocations of water, particularly from the Kirkwood-Cohansey aquifer system, and to ensure a truly sustainable level of exploitation of all aquifers. PPA is advocating both for implementation of existing regulatory standards that have been neglected in the past and for changes to the water allocation rules.

PPA tracks, analyzes and submits comments on specific water allocation requests that affect the Pinelands.

[+ ZOOM] Berlin Well © PPA

PPA, in partnership with the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and American Littoral Society, submitted a proposal calling on the Governor to convene a working group of public and private agencies to plan for sustainable development, including particularly a sustainable use of ground water, in the Atlantic City metropolitan area. This area includes both Pinelands and non-Pinelands areas that share the same aquifers and the same economic engine in Atlantic City . While the Pinelands Commission and DEP staff have now recognized the need for long-term water supply planning in this area, they have taken no action so far to address this critical issue.

Landscape and habitat protection

Improving protection of rare, threatened and endangered species habitat has been a major focus of PPA’s work over the grant period. This work includes several related efforts:

Advocating for improved policies to better protect threatened and endangered species habitats in potential development areas: PPA is proposing area-wide reexamination of Pinelands CMP designations in known species “hot spots” and more reliable environmental survey procedures (including specific, species-based survey protocols). This idea is motivated by experience showing that trying to protect such habitat on a parcel-by-parcel basis as development applications arise is difficult and rife with conflict.

[+ ZOOM] The threatened pine snake. © Bob Birdsall

Advocacy for protection of known threatened and endangered species habitats in connection with specific development applications or proposals: This work includes continued work on the Sanctuary development in Evesham Township , where PPA, New Jersey Audubon Society and the Natural Resources Defense Council are supporting the Pinelands Commission’s efforts to address the discovery of pine snakes on the property. This work also extends to several other places in the Pinelands, where PPA is analyzing development proposals and advocating for limitation or improved design of new development where threatened or endangered species have been found.

Permanent land protection

PPA, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and The Nature Conservancy have undertaken a major effort to get more federal money appropriated under the acquisition element of the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978. Right now, $9 million of federal funds have been authorized but not appropriated by Congress. We have made several trips to Washington , D.C. and garnered genuine, active support from New Jersey ’s Congressional delegation, both Republicans and Democrats. Unfortunately, the President and – to an even greater extent – the leadership in Congress do not see land acquisition as a priority at this point in history, so it may take some years to get all those funds appropriated. Nevertheless, Congress did appropriate $750,000 in the current fiscal year budget for Pinelands acquisitions.

PPA supported the New Jersey Conservation Foundation’s purchase of the 9,400 acre DeMarco farm, which became the Franklin Parker Preserve – a very fitting tribute to the career of former PPA Trustee Frank Parker.

Off-Road Vehicle (ORV) regulation

[+ ZOOM] Fred Akers, Great Egg Harbor Watershed Association, speaks out during our off-road vehicle campaign

PPA sees illegal Off-Road Vehicle use as a major threat to Pine Barrens habitats and plant and animal communities. The past two years has brought much higher media coverage of this issue in New Jersey and other states. A broad consensus among state and local governments, as well as many private organizations, has been forged. Consistent with recommendations created by a group of stake-holders PPA convened for this purpose, as well as other parties pressing this issue, the DEP committed to an integrated program of improved enforcement, mandatory vehicle registration, rider education, and creation of managed ORV parks on appropriate sites. While enforcement has improved in some areas, it remains to be seen whether the state will in fact implement a program of vehicle registration, education and ORV parks. PPA will stay active in advocating for these reforms, especially as they apply to the Pinelands.