From The Jackson Times — John C. Stokes, executive director of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, will hold a public hearing on a proposed Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that would authorize widening the Garden State Parkway in the Pinelands.

The public hearing will be held at 7 p.m. on October 15 at the Berkeley Township Town Hall on 627 Pinewald-Keswick Road in Bayville. Written testimony may be submitted at the hearing or sent directly to the Pinelands Commission at 15C Springfield Road, PO Box 7, New Lisbon, NJ 08064, or via facsimile at 609-894-7330 or by e-mail to legal@njpines.state.nj.us. Comments must be submitted no later than noon on October 16.

Following the October 15 hearing, Stokes will submit a report on the hearing and a formal recommendation regarding the proposed MOA to the commission’s public and governmental programs committee. The committee will review the comments and decide whether to recommend consideration of the MOA by the 15-member Pinelands Commission.

The proposed agreement would be among the commission and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority. The turnpike authority is proposing to widen the Garden State Parkway between Interchange 30 in Somers Point, Atlantic County and Interchange 80 in South Toms River, Ocean County to respond to traffic demands and to improve public safety within the corridor. All but approximately one acre of the project would occur in the Pinelands.

The proposed 50-mile widening project would take place mostly within the median and primarily within the parkway’s existing right-of-way. It would add a third traffic lane and wider shoulders in the northbound and southbound directions. The project also would include the construction of new parallel spans and rehabilitation of existing bridges over the Mullica and Bass rivers, as well as widening the existing bridge over Patcong Creek.

Because it would impact habitat for certain threatened and endangered plant and animal species, the proposed project is not fully consistent with Pinelands regulations.

Executive Director Stokes is seeking public comments on whether the MOA, which would allow activities that are not in strict compliance with Pinelands regulations, is accompanied by measures that will, at a minimum, afford an equivalent level of protection of Pinelands resources than would be provided through the strict application of Pinelands standards.

In order to provide an equivalent level of protection of Pinelands resources, the turnpike authority has agreed to purchase and deed restrict against future development at least 142.76 acres of land to offset potential threatened and endangered plant and animal species habitat impacts associated with the project. The authority has proposed to provide a portion of this offset at a 259-acre site known as the Turtle Creek site in Washington Township Burlington County. The site contains expanses of Atlantic White Cedar forest that have substantially recovered from historical logging. The site has been studied over the years and has been documented to contain numerous state-threatened and endangered species, including Pine Barrens tree frogs various bird species, timber rattlesnake, New Jersey rush and Pine Barrens boneset.

Although the entire Turtle Creek site would be preserved as part of the authority’s overall mitigation package for the proposed project, 44 acres of the site would be specifically set aside for Pinelands threatened and endangered species habitat offsets. The remaining acreage would be utilized for New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection freshwater wetland mitigation and to address Coastal Area Facility Review Act wildlife habitat mitigation.

The authority proposes to address the remaining 98.76 acres of threatened and endangered species offset through the future acquisition of land elsewhere. That land will also be deed restricted against future development to ensure that suitable and characteristic habitat for the northern pine snake and red-headed woodpecker is preserved.

Acting as technical consultants on behalf of the Pinelands Commission, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) undertook a study of the proposed project’s potential to generate secondary, growth-related impacts that might induce changes in land use that would be inconsistent with the Pinelands land use program. The DVRPC concluded that only the induced impacts in the vicinity of Interchanges 58 and 69 would have the potential to be inconsistent with the Pinelands program.

Under the MOA, steps would be taken under a separate agreement through which the authority would address the secondary impacts. That agreement must remain confidential at the present time because it addresses the purchase of specific properties.

The proposed MOA is available for public inspection and copying at the Pinelands Commission’s offices in Pemberton Township. It is also available on the commission’s Web site at www.nj.gov/pinelands.