Environmental Impact Report: Elm Street Park (ESP) & Florham Parks Open Space

"Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them". George Santayana

Section V: Evaluation of Borough Open Space

As you see from my description of Open Space remaining in the Borough, the land in inventory has a wide range of pros and cons ranging from very poor quality to exceptional. Much of the land is fragmented and non-continuous; hence these lands are ecologically compromised to a large extent. Only a small fraction would I consider exceptional resource value land. However all of the above bullet point areas represent lands that still maintain a level of ecological functioning in concert with Natural Capital as defined in the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) assessment report on the subject, 2007, various naturally-occurring assets that provide economic value over an extended period, a period that for some assets is essentially perpetual on any meaningful human time scale. Of the above lands it is my professional judgment that roughly 1/2 of the open space is exceptional resource value land (+/- 1,000 acres) (1/5 of FPs total land area). I define these lands as having at least three of the following characteristics:
1. Lands that is within and connected to greenway corridors 2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

that extend beyond the boundaries of Florham Park Borough Lands that are essential for flood storage, riverine, storm water, and aquifer recharge. Lands whose ability to support complete ecological assemblages of native biota Lands that remain ecologically intact or have not yet been compromised from future restoration Lands that presently support or have the potential to support native flora and fauna designated by the Endangered Nongame Species Program of New Jersey as threatened, endangered or species of special concern Lands that buffer residential areas from sound signatures mainly related to traffic, airports, and industrial hubs. Many of these exceptional resource lands are dominated by freshwater wetland land covers already valued as exceptional by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) Lands that are valuable for Quality of Life amenities, namely, present and future passive recreation, education,
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and most importantly the free ecological services they provide 7. Lands that are located on a Tier One Aquifer recharge area. Lands that the Environmental Commission of Florham Park would only recommend for development under the most dire of circumstances 8. Lands where no other alternative for public need can be met whose development can only be justified after careful nonbiased examination is applied to the circumstance adequately demonstrating that the benefit to the public outweighs the ecologic free services and value inherit to the open space provide. Pay close attention to # 8 as I strongly believe that this part of the equation was never considered as it pertains to the ESP.
In summary, our open space inventory holds very few remaining lands that assemble complete environmental order and ecological efficacy. The lands that still display attributes in concert with some semblance of ecological integrity exist as greenway connected corridors with other municipalities (Black Meadows and the Passaic River Floodplain). These lands are rare, these lands are endangered, and these lands are a commodity that we should not so easily discard as useless fodder our OSMP dictates it, the ordinance that created the FPEC demands it, the state Wildlife Action Plan endorses it, and NJDEP recommends it through the State Master Plan on Growth. It is incumbent upon responsible local governments to protect and maintain them for future generations. The problem is the current Administration and Recreation Committee blatantly ignored or never considered any of this when they decided Elm Street Park was the only place left in the Borough to fulfill a professed need for a large scale recreation facility. Let me make it perfectly clear that I am not implying the minimum required environmental standards were not enforced; only that if these laws were not on the books I am confident that the entire site would have been dealt with environmental indifference. Elm Street Park woodlands are, I mean were - located in buffer habitat to the highly sensitive Black Meadows, an EPA Priority Wetland. When Ive mentioned this fact to Recreation people and administrators in town they dont know what that is or what it implies. If Florham Park Borough Planners and Recreation Committee members continue to operate without forethought to environmental capital the future needs of recreation sports will always override the free ecological services provided from the resource. As stated I conclude that less than 1/5 of the total land in the Borough is Open Space of exceptional quality, approximately 1,000 acres. Of these 1,000 acres, approximately 85% can never be built as theyre dominated by wetland and floodplain (majority located in the Passaic River Floodplain and BMEC) NJDEP regulation prohibits their fill. That leaves a meager 150 acres in need of protection.

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If the Borough were not subject to wetland regulation associated with this 85% would these lands be built on today or slated for fill and development tomorrow? You bet they would! I can count on one hand the public officials in the Borough that would see this land as Natural Capital, but dont have enough fingers or toes to count all those that look at land merely as a commodity whose sole purpose and function it is to build upon and maximize profit from. In point of fact Emmet Field was, and still acts as, a wetland. This should have been the last place in town on which to build a complex of this scope. Back in the 1960s no one gave it a second thought it was just useless swampland, and the likely reason why better upland sites available at the time were not chosen. Back then, no one considered the environmental economics behind recharge, flood storage, wildlife habitat, aesthetics, carbon sinking, and greenways. Isnt it funny how in this enlightened day and age that history continues to repeat itself? Beyond the inventory of bullet points above, the remaining 80% of the Borough is in some form of sod or impervious cover (houses, buildings, parking lots, roads, etc.). From strictly a practical sense Florham Park is at Build-Out, a condition where any future human development deteriorates natural capital beyond the tipping point; a state where free services provided by natural systems ceases to function without capital expenditures necessary to offset the service provided. Does this mean we cant put up more townhomes along Columbia Turnpike or Passaic Avenue as could occur in the next 10 years? OF course we can; anything can be engineered away if we like. But we do so at the risk of greater costs in services and higher taxes as we increase the needs equation for more schools, parks, banks and Dunkin Donuts & the like; in other words quality of life is downsized in the process. Most importantly we chisel away, bit by bit, piece by piece, the natural capital that sustains us all through clean air and water. But dont take my word for it. Ask our town planner if we can sustain Florham Park at a higher density than the 12,800 people presently living in the Borough. He will probably say Yes ,we can; but then ask him if we should, and I think he would agree with me that ole- Florham Park has reached build-out.

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