PRINCETON: Officials hear Millstone Watershed assessment

By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
   Jim Waltman, executive director of the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, presented an environmental assessment of Princeton’s two municipalities to the Princeton Township Committee this week.
   The document provides officials with a blueprint of projects, ordinances and other measures to help the community preserve natural resources even as it pursues development and economic prosperity. It helps officials identify issues in a municipality that “either hinder or enhance the preservation of natural resources and quality of life in and around the community.”
   The assessment identified the Princeton Ridge and Lake Carnegie as “special resource areas”, as were Princeton’s tree-lined streets.
   The Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association recommended the township and the borough conduct an inventory of scenic streets and corridors and adopt ordinances protecting those corridors. The report recommends officials update the township’s stream corridor ordinance and create a critical areas ordinance that defines sensitive areas and removes them from calculations of buildable land.
   Another recommendation called for the creation of a natural resources inventory to provide information for future land use planning.
   The Joint Princeton Environmental Commission is moving ahead with the inventory, Mr. Waltman said.
   ”That’s great that they’re already doing that,” said Mr. Waltman, in Thursday interview.
   Other areas covered by the assessment include groundwater protection, woodland conservation, low impact development, traffic and transportation, flood and storm-water mitigation and public participation and communication.
   The creation of the assessment is the latest step in a process that began in 2005. At that time officials in both Princeton Borough and Princeton Township passed resolutions affirming their partnership with the organization. A survey of local officials followed, inquiring about their vision for the future of Princeton and their goals for the local environment. Mr. Waltman said he hopes the assessment will allow Princeton to “step back up” in terms of being on the forefront of environmental planning.
   The Township Committee eventually moved to have the assessment sent onto the Princeton Regional Planning Board for consideration in the annual reexamination of the Princeton Master Plan.