By ALLISON PRIES and SCOTT FALLON
STAFF WRITERS

OAKLAND - The Board of Freeholders will spend $2 million to help preserve the steeply sloping woodland known as Camp Todd.

Bergen County and the state will pay a developer $8 million for the land.

The freeholders on Wednesday approved $1.5 million from the county open space fund and a $500,000 capital bond for the land. Fyke Nature Association, a non-profit organization in Allendale, is contributing $450,000. The state will pay the balance.

The purchase will bring the county's open space holdings to 1,000 acres in the Highlands.

"This is the last, largest piece of land in Bergen County," said Freeholder Valerie Huttle.

Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney said that preserving open space is a priority for his administration.

"It is critical that the county take advantage of opportunities to purchase the few remaining large tracts of undeveloped land before they get gobbled up by a developer's wrecking ball," McNerney said in a written statement.

The 73-acre parcel, owned by LMK Associates, sits atop the Ramapo Mountain ridge line. It's next to Ramapo State Forest and two other former Scout camps, Tamarack and Glen Gray, which are now county-owned.

Environmentalists have been lobbying to protect the land for almost 20 years.

"It feels so good because it's so long overdue," said Jeff Tittel, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club.

Most recently, environmentalists opposed a housing development approved by the Oakland Planning Board in 2003. The board granted LMK permission to build 24 single-family luxury homes.

Camp Todd "was the hole in the doughnut," said Mike Herson, also from the Sierra Club. "Had it been developed, it would have diminished the value of the habitat and recreational experience for people who would be visiting nearby parks because they'd look up and see 24 McMansions."

Opponents of development also argued that the blasting necessary to develop the sloping land would disturb nearby wetlands, streams, groundwater and animal habitats. The Ramapo River Reserve, a 400-unit development located below Camp Todd, may have contributed to a mudslide that damaged homes during Tropical Storm Floyd in 1999.

"I am overjoyed," said Bergen County Sheriff Leo McGuire, a former Oakland councilman who pushed to protect Camp Todd.

As a young Boy Scout, McGuire said, he hiked and camped up there.

"It just deserves to be preserved in its current condition," he said. "Pristine and untouched."

In October the borough applied to the state for an open space grant so that it could buy the property for $6.6 million.

"We fully expected to be a participant in the purchase," Mayor John Szabo said Wednesday. But, he continued, it "makes perfect sense" that the county and state stepped in to buy it "because they already own space up there."

"We'll gladly take our resources elsewhere," Szabo said, adding that he'd like to preserve 200 acres of the Ramapo Ridge Line behind ShopRite.