CAFRA Died Long Ago – Bay a Funeral For Coastal Land Use Planning
Reaping the Results of Builders Gone Wild
With the proliferation of scientific reports and scathingly critical media editorials of the impending death of Barnegat Bay competing with the proliferation of algae and jellyfish, it’s time to step back and begin to take stock of just what went wrong.
A comment from my friend Bill Neil (a must read, see below) reminds me that I tend to get bogged down in the regulatory weeds, and often fail here to tell the story with a broader brush.
Simply put, the Death of Barnegat Bay is an illustration of the greed and political power of the development lobby – builders, realtors, landowners, business groups, etc – and the total failure of land use planning and environmental regulation at the State level under the “Coastal Area Facility Review Act” (CAFRA).
The CAFRA law was enacted in 1973 – here are its objectives:
The Legislature finds and declares that New Jersey’s bays, harbors, sounds, wetlands, inlets, the tidal portions of fresh, saline or partially saline streams and tributaries and their adjoining upland fastland drainage area nets, channels, estuaries, barrier beaches, near ...
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WolfeNotes will focus on important stories that are being ignored or misrepresented by the media. I’ll do traditional muckraking to hold the bad guys accountable; expose the lies and self serving spin of government officials and politicians; and explore how the failures of government, media, AND well meaning environmental organizations contribute to the problems we face.
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