| Hackensack Riverkeeper | NY/NJ Baykeeper |
| 1000 River Rd. / T090C | Building 18 / Sandy Hook |
| Teaneck, NJ 07666 | Highlands, NJ 07132 |
| 201-692-8440 | 732-291-0176 |
| 201-692-8449 (FAX) | 732-291-7727 (FAX) |
| 201-755-6466 (cell) | 732-768-4848 (cell) |
| www.hackensackriverkeeper.org | www.nynjbaykeeper.org |
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January 23, 2002 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEAction Taken by Meadowlands Commission Kills SAMP Conservationists celebrate victory in the Hackensack Meadowlands Lyndhurst, NJ - “This is a huge victory,” said NY/NJ Baykeeper Andy Willner, virtually the first person to speak out against the Special Area Management Plan. “People warned us in 1989 not to go toe to toe with those who were standing behind the SAMP: some of the most powerful, well-connected developers in the nation. But we didn’t take that advice. We drew a line in the marsh and dared them to cross it.”The result was one of the biggest, hardest-fought urban wetland preservation battles in U.S. history. “Now that the SAMP is dead, we can move forward with our plan to permanently protect the Meadowlands as a wildlife refuge,” said Hackensack Riverkeeper Capt. Bill Sheehan. “It’s an amazing David and Goliath victory.” The Hackensack River estuary wetlands once totaled 32,000 acres. Today, approximately 7,000 acres of marsh and 1,000 acres of open water are left. The SAMP would have filled in 1,600 acres of the remaining wetland (eventually adjusted downward to 500 acres). The SAMP would also have created more office and industrial space than currently exists in all of Hudson County. The plan’s opponents insisted that an alternative be developed in which all wetlands were protected while urban uplands provided the land for economic redevelopment. “All through the SAMP process, we stuck to one number for wetland development: and that number was zero,” said Sheehan. “Andy and I kept asking the Commission ‘What is it about zero you don’t understand?’” Sheehan, a boater and fisherman, was inspired to join the fray at Willner’s urging. Using the Baykeeper model, he organized the Hackensack Riverkeeper. The two groups galvanized public opinion. “I spent 3 or 4 nights a week talking to women’s groups, garden clubs and sportsmen’s groups,” says Sheehan. “From Kearny to Secaucus to Little Ferry we organized thousands of people to testify against the SAMP. We brought together whole communities, we brought out people by the busload. We educated, proving to everyone that the Meadowlands was not an unredeemable post-industrial swamp, but a vital living resource.” Baykeeper and Riverkeeper eventually forged the Hackensack Meadowlands Partnership, an unbeatable coalition that included the Rutgers Environmental Law Clinic, Natural Resource Defense Council, Sierra Club, NJ Audubon, the Association for NJ Environmental Commissions, hunting and fishing clubs and many other organizations eventually totaling thousands. State and municipal officials and blue collar neighborhoods all assailed the SAMP as an outrageous give-away to developers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received more than 1,800 negative comments to the SAMP’s draft Environmental Impact Statement. 10,000 petition signatures were gathered urging preservation of the Meadowlands. “The public found it impossible to fathom the HMDC’s argument that filling in the Meadowlands could possibly save it,” says Willner. Agencies too came to the defense of the Meadowlands. The U.S. EPA recognized the marsh as “ecologically important”, and said that “92% of the wetlands were naturally functioning to a high or moderate level.” The National Marine Fisheries Service designated the Hackensack Estuary as “an aquatic resource of national importance.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service called the estuary a “significant area” for the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. Late in the 1990s, the stakes were raised still higher when the 1.2 million square foot Meadowlands Mills mega-mall was proposed. Mills wanted to fill in over 200 acres of marsh, erecting the largest mall east of the Mississippi. While Mills continues to seek individual permits, the company also drove hard to get the SAMP approved, a move that would have almost assured the mall’s construction. Capt. Sheehan views the Commission’s rejection of the SAMP as a milestone. “What the Commission has recognized is that the Meadowlands offers more than vital habitat for fish and birds, more than open space for boaters to enjoy, more than good flood prevention. These wetlands are our ‘commons.’ They don’t belong to developers. They belong to all of us. They are Public Trust lands.” Willner concludes, “The SAMP inspired a sweeping change in how people think. It caused thousands of citizens in blue collar communities to stand up with passion and certainty and say that they didn’t want development in the marsh, they wanted open space. And the Commission, in a profound about-face, has now heard what the people were saying. The next step is to consolidate our victory and sometime in the spring, cut a ribbon on the Meadowlands Wildlife Refuge.” | |