Recently, the Ocean County Board of Freeholders took control of almost 300 acres of pristine woodlands near Route 528 and Perrineville Road in Jackson. That parcel, located near the headwaters of the Toms River, joins more than 235,000 acres of land that is protected and forever preserved here in Ocean County.
What makes that number so important is that Ocean County itself contains about 408,000 acres of land, meaning that more than nearly 60 percent of all the property located throughout our 33 townships and boroughs is now protected open space.
Those acres include pinelands, farmlands, sensitive wetlands and other tracts large and small from Little Egg Harbor to Lakewood. Many of these parcels could have been home to sprawling residential communities.
The Jackson site, for instance, had originally been slated for nearly 373 single-family homes.
While a tract of land in the western part of the county may not seem important to our ongoing efforts to protect the Barnegat Bay, it is in fact crucial. The Barnegat Bay Watershed extends throughout the county, meaning that storm water runoff from as far west as Jackson and Plumsted does eventually reach the bay.
There is no better way to protect our bay and the surrounding rivers and streams than by keeping as much of our land as possible free from development.
Since 1991, the Ocean County Farmlands Preservation Program, and later the Natural Lands Trust Fund, have protected more than 14,000 acres of farmland and open space. Together with the help of the Pinelands National Preserve, the federal and state governments and our local municipalities, we can be assured that our natural treasures will be preserved for generations to come.
But the work is not yet done. The county will continue to preserve additional acreage and work hard to keep our green spaces forever green.
As an original member and chairman of the Ocean County Natural Lands Trust Fund Advisory Committee, I would like to thank the citizen volunteers who sit on the panel and give freely of their time to help protect our future.
This program and its great successes also would not have been possible without the leadership, vision and foresight of Freeholder John C. Bartlett Jr. and the entire Ocean County Board of Freeholders. Freeholder Bartlett’s never-tiring efforts ensure that the preservation of our natural resourceswill forever be the legacy of this board of freeholders.
Gerry P. Little Ocean County freeholder
Toms RiverToms River