The fate of the Highlands watershed preservation bill is now in the hands of five state senators - none of whom lives in the region.

One of those is Henry P. McNamara, R-Wyckoff, who lives in Bergen County but represents a district that includes the Highlands communities of Mahwah and Oakland in Bergen County and Ringwood and Wanaque in Passaic County.

The five-member Senate environment committee is set to meet in Trenton today on the proposed landmark legislation, with three votes needed to release the bill to the full Legislature. The Assembly environment committee voted the bill out on Monday.

McNamara has alarmed some bill proponents by teaming with Steven M. Sweeney, D-Gloucester, on a list of 14 amendments, many of which call for exemptions that favor developers.

"It's a laundry list for builders," said state Sierra Club leader Jeff Tittel.

Sweeney is another committee member who worries preservation bill supporters. Other committee members are John H. Adler, D-Camden; Andrew R. Ciesla, R-Ocean; and Chairman Bob Smith, D-Middlesex, who is a bill sponsor.

McNamara, who championed open space in the Nineties when he headed the Senate environment committee, said he is still an environmental advocate. But on this bill, he said he is concerned about the interests of towns that would lose tax ratables if all development is banned in the proposed preservation area.

"He's not doing it for any special interest groups. He's doing it for his constituents," Wanaque Mayor Warren Hagstrom said of McNamara's moves.

Sweeney wants the bill to include funding for South Jersey's Pinelands equal to what would be spent in the Highlands for conservation buyouts, farmland preservation, and state aid to reimburse municipalities that lose ratables or tax appeals due to conservation efforts.

Adler and Ciesla also are from South Jersey and are expected to favor Sweeney's stance.

The outcome of the committee vote was so in doubt that it was postponed on Monday. Governor McGreevey held an emergency meeting of legislative leaders, bill sponsors, and committee holdouts. Smith said he feels a reasonable deal was worked out.

"If there's any justice in the world, it should come out [today]," Smith said Wednesday of action on the bill. "We really have tried to meet every concern."

But Smith declined to predict the outcome of the vote.

The bill, called the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act, would ban major developments on privately owned and municipal tracts near reservoirs and feeder streams. A regional council would regulate limited development within a preservation area, oversee conservation buyouts, and recommend growth areas elsewhere in the region.

The mountain region, which supplies water to half the state, stretches from northwestern Bergen County through portions of Passaic, Morris, Somerset, Sussex, Warren, and Hunterdon counties.

Smith said he accepted some amendments proposed by McNamara and Sweeney, notably those that would grandfather developments that have local approval and a major state permit, allow development of sites subject to court orders on affordable housing, and provide comparable state funding aid to the Pinelands.

"I believe we have not hurt that preservation area at all," Smith said of exemptions that would allow developments such as a 755-unit housing project in Wanaque that McNamara and local officials pressed to be excluded from the bill's regulations.

"There's also some money for Pinelands towns," Smith said.

But Smith said he didn't accept other McNamara proposed amendments, including one that would exclude industrial zones from the preservation area.

Amendments proposed by others would require the regional council to identify lands outside the preservation area where development should be encouraged and offer financial incentives to towns that voluntarily accept higher density growth through a transfer of development rights.

Smith said the major amendment that should satisfy objectors states that funds to pay for municipal tax stabilization aid will come from the state realty transfer tax. Bill sponsors want to tap the real estate sales tax, which takes in more than $180 million per year, for $20 million annually.