I AM FLOORED!!! This article is about my home town. I grew up in Mt. Olive Township AKA Budd Lake NJ! My wife's family as well as my entire extended family still lives there. We go there often. It will always be our home in spite of the fact we live about 55 miles away in another state.
One of my brother in-laws still operates what I believe is one of the handful of remaining farms that has survived.
What an interesting story can be told about the area and the fact that there is a moratorium on any further house construction there and vast amounts of timberland now controlled by the state under something called the "Green Acres Land preservation Act” or some such thing.
The legislation you post is desperately needed both for the income of much privately owned but state regulated timber containing land and the remaining farms. The area alone, IMO, could supply LLEG's plant in Berlin perpetually if the timber was re-planted as soon as it was “selectively” harvested. Also there are huge quantities of "blown-down" timber and naturally fallen timber already on the ground in much of the area as well as many other townships in northern NJ. Scattered through out northern NJ are what we used to call “Fire Towers.” These were 100’ + high towers which had glass enclosed radio rooms and were manned during dry periods by “Forrest Service Firefighters who continually scanned
My brothers and I as well as at least three generations of my family still hunt those woods where permitted and hiking is common.
The area is "special" as what I believe is the northeast' largest, glacially created, lake (Budd Lake) for the altitude above sea level. One side of the lake contains a "floating Bog," which contains a species of tree known as the "Northern Blue Spruce (?)" It is found only in this bog land and comes from Canada only. The tree was apparently deposited there during the last glacial period and the lake itself was "scooped out or formed" by the same glacial action. The northern blue spruce is what began much of the wetland, and other type of forest protection legislation.
FWIW,
Nez
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Benjamin Franklin
