Green Jersey

Conservationist to Corzine: Fill vacancies

Piney photo via Rutgers.edu.

Michele Byers, executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, had an opinion piece in yesterday’s Daily Record criticizing Gov. Corzine for his inaction on filling vacancies in a number of environmental councils, something environment advocates have called him out on before. The title of her piece was “Environment going unguarded”:

There is strength in numbers and, conversely, weakness when numbers are lacking. This truism can be seen in many situations, from herds of grazing animals on open plains to sports contests in which one team has a man-up advantage.

It is puzzling, then, that our governor would leave some key decision-making commissions short-handed. The problem of unfilled seats on these commissions is alarmingly widespread, and the implications for New Jersey’s natural resources and quality of life can’t be overstated.

Byers points out vacancies, some longstanding, on the Pinelands Council, Highlands Council, State Planning Commission, Fish and Game Council, Marine Fisheries Council and the not yet off the ground Coastal and Ocean Protection Council — this initiative, announced early last year, “is still stuck in the starting blocks,” she says.

Last week Corzine was part of a group of regional governors that agreed to create a new ocean-protection council, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council on the Ocean.

Read Byers’ opinion piece here.