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Environmentalists Rally In Toms River For Statewide Open Space Funding
By Jo Ann La Russo
OCEAN COUNTY - Activists from Environment New Jersey staged a small rally on Wednesday to highlight the need for open space preservation funding in Ocean County.
Environment New Jersey staff members Katie Feeney and Elizabeth Glynn gathered with group members in a parking lot at Irons and Water streets to emphasize disappearing open space in New Jersey. Time, they said, is running short to preserve open space and public parks.
Nine years ago, Governor Christie Whitman prepared a 10-year plan for the environment. With the agreement in its final year, environmentalists are hoping that public outcry will reach the ears of the State house in Trenton where they say funding must be renewed.
Although a one-year, $200 million stop gap measure has been passed by the legislature, the solvency of the Garden State Preservation Trust fund remains unresolved.
"Every day in New Jersey, 50 acres of open space is lost to developers," said Feeney. "Funding for open space preservation must be secured before the last open spaces are all paved over … Between 1986 and 2002, Ocean County lost over 10,000 acres to development and has less than 30 percent open space left."
In order to reach their goal to preserve open space in Ocean County, the group is asking public support to secure long-term stable funding for the Garden State Preservation Trust.
The Garden State Preservation Trust provides the main funding mechanism for the Green Acres and Farmland Preservation program and the New Jersey Historic Trust, as well as grants for urban park acquisition and improvement projects.
Initiated in the late 1990s, the trust has successfully preserved over 400,000 acres of open space. In addition, the open space trust fund provides matching grants for the over 226 municipalities and all 21 counties that collect local open taxes, said the environmentalists.
Representatives of Environment NJ have been going door to door throughout the shore counties, asking citizens for support on the stop gap measure that will be on the ballot in November if Governor Jon Corzine signs into law a fourth referendum question asking voters to borrow $200 million for open space preservation.
Activists say the stop gap measure is not enough. Through public support, they want to encourage legislative leaders and the governor to develop a stable funding plan with a dedicated funding of $380 million a year for 10 years, money to be devoted to open space preservation and park maintenance and operations.
"The legislature should be leading the charge to protect open space for the longterm," said Glynn. "We can't afford to scramble every year to assure open space funding."
To assure long-term funding for the Garden State Preservation Trust, the environmentalists say that the state must constitutionally dedicate a stable long-term funding source of $225 million a year for open space preservation.
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