Environment the winner as court upholds waterway buffers

The New Jersey Supreme Court recently ended a two-year legal battle over how the state protects our most pristine waters. The court upheld an Appellate Court decision approving new rules designed to curtail storm water runoff, providing a major victory for New Jersey’s water systems and the millions who rely on them for drinking water.

One of the new rules expanded to 300 feet the buffers around our cleanest waters — those designated for Category 1 protection, meaning no measurable deterioration in water quality would be allowed. No building is generally allowed inside these buffers, since development destroys the natural function of the land. In addition, it usually adds a lot of pollution as rain water washes oil and other chemicals off parking lots, lawns, roofs and other “artificial” surfaces; all this extra crud, concentrated near a water body, is beyond the natural capacity of the land to filter before the water reaches the stream, lake or ground water table.

Seeing that the buffer rule would take a lot of valuable land off the paving schedule, the New Jersey Builders Association argued the DEP was dabbling in land use decisions that fall outside their jurisdiction. They sued and lost at every step, with the Supreme Court finally refusing to even hear their final appeal.

Read the full news story at the Asbury Park Press.