Legislation to preserve 800,000-acre region fails to get minimal backing in committee

Several members of the committee said the bill -- which stalled after no senator would second it -- needed work, despite weeks of marathon negotiations meant to assuage their concerns. But supporters of the bill were becoming suspicious of the holdout's motives, and environmentalists labeled the day's events a win for builders.

"This is one of the most shameful days in New Jersey history," said Jeff Tittel of the state Sierra Club chapter. "Special interests won out over public interests. This bill is to protect the drinking water for 4 1/2 million people, and it can't get a second?"

The failure to mount a vote derailed the measure, at least temporarily, but Sen. Bob Smith (D-Middlesex), the committee chairman whose offer of the bill was met with stony silence, said his committee would try again on June 14. An Assembly committee passed an identical version of the bill on Monday.

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) vowed to keep bringing the bill up, even it meant holding committee meetings during the Legislature's summer break.

"This bill is too important to take a break," he said.

Gov. James E. McGreevey, who was vacationing out of state, also pledged to keep the heat on the Legislature and vowed to act on his own if the bill didn't move. The governor has the power to declare a building moratorium, but it would certainly be challenged in court.

"The fight to protect New Jersey's drinking water is a fight I will wage every day in every corner of this state," McGreevey said. "When it comes to drinking water for our families, I will not back down."

Earlier in the day, in an unusually public display of political arm- twisting, members of the committee huddled with Democrat leaders attempting to broker a compromise. After nearly an hour of these discussions, held in small groups at the rear of the committee room, the committee adjourned until the afternoon, when the failed vote took place.

The bill would sharply curtail residential and commercial construction on half the Highlands, an 800,000-acre swath of forested ridges, streams and reservoirs that touches parts of seven northwestern New Jersey counties.

Smith said after the vote that he did not foresee any more changes to the bill. He said he was disappointed at the rebuke and said he hoped it wasn't the opening volley in a North-South feud.

Supporters, including McGreevey, have for weeks been attempting to broker a compromise with South Jersey Democrats, two of them members of the committee. One member, Sen. John Adler (D- Camden), said yesterday that he was prepared to vote for the bill but helped block the vote because he didn't want to see it fail.

Sen. Stephen Sweeney (D- Gloucester) pronounced himself close but still concerned about various issues. Several amendments to the bill yesterday were designed to win his support, including $1.8 million in property tax relief for booming towns on the edge of the Pinelands, where development is severely restricted.

Sweeney said discussion over the bill reopened old wounds dating back 25 years, when the state severely restricted development on roughly 1 million acres in the Pinelands. Landowners and builders still grumble about that "land grab," and towns picked to absorb the growth have suffered surging traffic, school populations and taxes.

"I know from firsthand experience with the Pinelands how the best of intentions can cause problems," Sweeney said. "Let's learn from those mistakes so they aren't repeated in the Highlands, and let's do what we can to rectify the ill effects for the Pinelands communities."

Supporters of the bill were privately grumbling, however, that it was a subterfuge, that Sweeney's concerns had been answered and the real agenda was killing or severely weakening the bill at the behest of builders.

One thing Sweeney is pushing, sources said, is a bill he sponsored that would give the state Planning Commission chairman veto power over all state regulations. That could effectively hamstring future state efforts at environmental regulation.

The bill surfaced this spring in the wake of a feud between the state Department of Environmental Protection and the Planning Commission over a statewide map that would red-light or green- light development, depending on its location. South Jersey politicians had been angry that some development projects they supported were in the red zone.

John Barba, president of the New Jersey Builders Association, denied vehemently, however, that his industry was pulling strings.

"We're not even in the room," he said.