Far less publicized than New Jersey's efforts to preserve land in the Highlands is a federal plan pending in Congress that would provide funding to purchase sensitive lands.

The Highlands Conservation Act would provide $100 million over 10 years in matching funds to preserve land in New Jersey and the three other states with land in the Highlands - New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

Originally, the measure was supposed to designate a Highlands Stewardship Area, but that was deleted to remove any federal role over preservation and just provide funding after property rights groups complained the bill was nothing more than a federal land grab. And some Western congressmen balked at spending so much money in the Northeast - it initially was supposed to provide $250 million.

Still, the measure has the support of the Highlands Coalition, a group of more than 100 environmental organizations that has worked to preserve the region for more than a decade.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, right, speaks at a news conference at Wildcat Ridge, as Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen looks on. "This is a nationally significant region that warrants federal assistance to protect the water supply for several major metropolitan areas," said Jim Tripp, general counsel for Environmental Defense and chairman of the Highlands Coalition.

The bill would spend $10 million a year from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to purchase threatened land in partnership with states, counties, municipalities and nonprofit groups. The measure also would provide $1 million a year to the U.S. Forest Service to continue do research and provide technical assistance to communities in the Highlands.

Federal money critical

Federal money is considered critical to help buy land, or at least the development to land, because acreage in North Jersey is so expensive and the state and local governments have limited funding available.

The House of Representatives passed the bill, sponsored by Rep. Rodney P. Frelinghuysen, R-11th, last November.

It had a hearing in the Senate Energy Committee last March, but is still awaiting action there. New Jersey's Democratic U.S. Senators, Jon Corzine and Frank Lautenberg, are co-sponsoring the bill in the Senate.

Frelinghuysen took Gale Norton, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, on a tour of Wildcat Ridge Wildlife Management Area in the Highlands last in May to try to further boost the measure. A hearing to move the bill out of the Senate committee could be held soon.

The departments of Interior and Agriculture released a joint report to Congress in April supporting preservation efforts in the Highlands and backing the use of federal funds to help preserve land in the region.

While more than $17 million in federal funds have been appropriated in the last three years for land acquisition and conservation easements in the Highlands - including $3.2 million for the 600-acre Crown Towers property in Mount Olive - that's money the state's representatives fight for out of the Forest Legacy Program budget each year. The Highlands Conservation Act would provide a dedicated, larger source and amount of funding annually for a decade.

"My responsibility at the federal level is to serve as a helping hand - one that works to secure more critical funding for open space purchases from willing sellers, while continuing to respect and compliment greater state, county, local and private efforts already in place to protect the Highlands region," Frelinghuysen said. "The Highlands Conservation Act embodies these goals."

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Colleen O'Dea can be reached at (973) 428-6655 or codea@gannett.com.

Copyright 2004 Daily Record.