Cape May gains open space for wildlife

By Wallace McKelvey

Inquirer Staff Writer

The settlement of a long-running lawsuit will allow New Jersey to buy 78 acres of open space at the Shore, while an additional 27 would be acquired with federal money moving through Congress, officials announced this week.

A settlement announced yesterday ended 17 years of litigation between the state and developer East Cape May Associates, which sued after the Department of Environmental Protection declined permit requests to build on 96 oceanfront acres in Cape May.

"I'm delighted that we are finally closing the book on litigation and opening a wonderland of undeveloped coastal property that serves as a refuge for birds and many other species of wildlife," Mark Mauriello, acting commissioner of the DEP, said in a statement.

The DEP, the Garden State Preservation Trust, and Cape May will buy 78 acres in the area known as Sewell's Point for $7 million to be used for recreation and for open space for migratory birds. The developer will build 71 homes and 14 affordable-housing units on the remaining 18 acres.

Pete Dunne, vice president of natural history at the Cape May Audubon Society, said the open land is of critical importance to a region that attracts hundreds of millions of migrating birds each year.

"Not having habitat here is like pulling the rug out beneath them," he said. "If they don't nest here, they won't succeed in the next leg of their journey."

Every year, more than 400 bird species nest on the Cape May peninsula on their way north to Canada or south to Central America.

"They assume their needs will be met here because they always have," Dunne said.

The state also would receive $3.1 million through the Land and Water Conservation Fund to expand the Cape May and Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuges.

With $1.1 million from the 2009-10 Interior and Environment Appropriations Act, passed by the U.S. House last week, Forsythe would acquire 27 acres of forested woodland and brackish wetland in Barnegat Township.

"There are lots of laws to protect wetlands," said Steve Atzert, refuge manager, "but if you build all around the wetland, it will be altered."

Atzert said with more development taking place in Ocean County, wetlands were dying because less water was flowing to them from the water table. Securing the wetland and forest areas will help preserve that flow of water and the plants and animals that depend on it.

Howard Schlegel, manager at the Cape May National Wildlife Refuge, said the $2 million his park would receive would go toward buying two areas, one a former farm field and tidal wetland, on the Delaware Bay.

"Development is always a competitor for acquiring land," he said, "but protection of wetlands is always one of our top priorities."

Contact staff writer Wallace McKelvey at 856-779-3917 or wmckelvey@phillynews.com.