Sprawl and drought
intimately connected
Whatever your opinion is of Gov. James McGreevey, he hit the nail on the head by calling for an end to sprawl while announcing the end of the current drought that has plagued the state.
Make no mistake, the two problems are intimately related.
New Jersey, and in particular central New Jersey, is an area particularly rich in potable water supplies. If the underground aquifers that exist throughout the area were filled with oil rather than water, we would probably be considered the equal of Saudi Arabia.
Despite that wealth, we have gotten a glimpse of just how finite our precious water resources are. The last year saw wells as deep as 100 feet run dry.
Considering the historic height of the water table in this area — the oldest sections of some communities have homes that were once serviced by wells less than 30 feet deep — that is quite amazing.
The entire reason for the change is development. Over the last 20 years alone, tens of thousands of homes, as well as thousands of businesses, have been built in central New Jersey.
Every one of them increased the demands on the area’s water supply. Now conservation is the only way to ensure that that supply continues to flow.
At the same time those homes and businesses increased the burden on the area’s ecosystem to handle the pollutants that the increased population has created.
McGreevey offered a weapon for that battle in the form of the Category One watershed regulations.
But the jury is still out on whether this is an environmental cannon or just another impotent paper popgun.
According to McGreevey and Bradley Campbell, state Department of Environmental Protection commissioner, Category One regulations ensure that river systems would be protected from any discharges that produce a measurable change in water quality.
Stormwater runoff would have to be as clean or cleaner than the river it drains into. Buffers would be increased between developments and rivers.
Whether that holds true in practice remains to be seen.
Recent sentiments aside, the pressure to develop land remains great.
In the past, the state and local governments have done far more to facilitate development than curb it. The proof of just how serious the governor and local officials are will be seen at your local planning and zoning board meetings.
The population we have now strains our water supply and ecosystems. The more growth the area sees, the greater that strain will become.