Published in the Asbury Park Press
By KIRK MOORE
STAFF WRITER
FOR MORE than two centuries, the Pine Barrens were plundered for natural resources of timber, iron ore, rare plants and animals, and, finally, the land itself.
But the greatest treasure is still in the pines -- the last big source of pure drinking water in the Northeast, an underground reservoir that's tapped at the edges but remains New Jersey's trump card if other water supplies give out.
As the population climbs in Ocean County and other growth areas on the Pinelands fringe, water demand will go up. Meanwhile, water consumers worry about reports of radium in southwest New Jersey wells and traces of chemical compounds in some Toms River public wells.
But researchers have warned that reaching into the Pinelands to solve those water woes could upset a delicate natural system of streams, wetlands and underground water flows that scientists are still a long way from understanding.
"It's essentially a concern with water quality and water quantity," said Carleton Montgomery, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, an environmental group.
Water is the key to virtually everything that makes the Pinelands worth saving, preservation advocates say. Shallow-water flows deep in the woods nurture Atlantic white cedar; its wood is cut to make duck decoys and hunting boats.
A state-administered, regionwide management plan for nearly 1 million acres in the Pinelands presumes that if its land-use dictates are followed, "there will be enough water to support both people and the ecosystem," Montgomery said. "There is evidence -- in bits and pieces, nothing catastrophic -- that suggests that may not be the case."
Last year, the U.S. Geological Survey reported that its survey of southern New Jersey wells inside and outside the Pinelands found radium levels in ground water were highest in southwest counties of Gloucester and Salem, where underground sand layers that geologists call the Bridgeton Formation are close to the surface; the formation contains a higher percentage of radium-bearing rock fragments that ancient glaciers ground off hills in northern Pennsylvania and New York, geologists say.
Meanwhile, Cape May County has problems with salt water intruding into over-tapped coastal wells that could force towns there to look for additional sources of fresh water.
After just a few relatively dry weeks -- with intermittent rainfall, not even drought conditions -- forest fires in Ocean County this month burned through swamps at Double Trouble State Park that had unusually low water levels, firefighters said.
In some places where there has been a lot of new development and wells drilled, "you can see locally where stream and lake levels have dropped," Montgomery said.
There is a tremendous amount of water in the sandy soils -- called the Kirkwood and Cohansey aquifers -- beneath the Pinelands. In the 1960s, geologist Edward C. Rhodehamel estimated the underground supply at about 18 trillion gallons.
Some is already being used. Retirement villages in Manchester tap right into the heart of the Kirkwood and Cohansey aquifers, and United Water Toms River keeps wells at the edge of the Pinelands in Berkeley, said Edward Hughmanic of United Water.
United Water has considered going west into the Pinelands' rural areas to get water, Hughmanic said. But there would be the problem and expense of obtaining state permits, plus "you'd have to put in transmission mains, and possibly pumping stations. I can run water to the moon, if you give me enough money, but it takes a lot of pumping stations," he quipped.
As early as 1876, Philadelphia financier Joseph Wharton recognized the potential of the Pine Barrens as a drinking water supply for his hometown. He acquired more than 100,000 acres around the defunct iron smelter at Batsto in Burlington County with an eye to building vast reservoirs and water works. But when New Jersey lawmakers realized the enormity of his plans, they banned the export of Pinelands water from the state.
In 1981, the Legislature went a step further, restricting the export of water more than 10 miles from the boundaries of the Pinelands National Reserve that Congress outlined in 1978.
That still leaves the water resource within the grasp of burgeoning towns around the Pinelands perimeter. There are no plans now for major water withdrawals, and any potential users would need to "demonstrate significant need" before state environmental officials and Pinelands commissioners could give their approval, said commission spokeswoman Nancy Soper.
Source: Asbury Park Press
Published: June 20, 1999
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