Don't solve New Jersey's governmental crisis by attacking environment
Your Turn
JUDITH STANLEY COLEMAN Guest Column
Whenever New Jersey has a governmental crisis - and they are commonplace these days - someone finds a way to take it out on environmental protection or open spaces.

Our legislators in Trenton are suffering budgetary angst over whether to cut state expenditures to what taxpayers can afford or to forgo re-election by raising taxes. Counting on our short memories, they've already raised the sales tax to 7 percent while balking at real fiscal reform. So Gov. Jon Corzine has announced a number of state cutbacks.

First, he apparently wants to take the "garden" out of "Garden State" by threatening to eliminate the agriculture department. It, like any bur eauc rac y, probably needs to trim political appointees and unnecessary programs. But the department provides a wide variety of programs to the $750 million businesses involving 9,000 farms totaling 832,600 acres - 17 percent of the state - of tilled, woodland, and pasture lands. Add on the many related agricultural industries, and the business rockets to $84 billion a year. The department also has permanently preserved 150,000 acres of farmland, with a target of 600,000 acres. Trim the department? Maybe. But don't ax it.

Second, he wants to take "protection" out of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The agency is supposed to protect us from environmental degradation, but the governor's 12.5 percent cut, on top of Gov. Whitman's 33 percent cut, plus subsequent hiring freezes, will leave us with an emasculated staff unable to protect our quality of life. DEP isn't a "nice to do" agency. It literally is the "thin green line" that protects everyone's health and wellbeing, from policing air pollution to controlling development along waterways to cleaning up toxic dumps, such as in Fort Monmouth. Given that threequarters of our waterways are polluted, should we cut the agency? No! Increase its funding? Yes, because overdevelopment and pollution must be stopped.

Third, he wants to take both "parks" - and we, the people - out of our state parks by closing or eliminating services at nine state parks by a delicately timed July 1, including historical Washington State Crossing and Monmouth Battlefield. Services in three other parks will be dram

atically reduced and offseason hours would be cut at all 42 state parks. But since taxpayers have already paid for their parks, why should they now be denied their use this summer because of the Legislature's inability to control spending? Surely the governor has a "slush fund" somewhere that could offset these cuts. Admittedly, special interest groups might miss the slush, but we taxpayers won't.

Close our parks? Never!

These environmental cutbacks come just after voters approved Ballot Question No. 3 last November. We said yes and opened our wallets to protect open space, parks, farmland, and historic sites - even during fiscally uncertain times. Now we witness the sad spectacle of the governor saying no and closing his (read "our") wallet to programs we approved, as our legislators piously protest his solutions to problems they created. Should we fight such arrogance and irresponsibility? Absolutely!
Judith Stanley Coleman
President
Monmouth Conservation
Foundation