Former NJ Pulverizing Tract Conservation Plan

Princeton Hydro was contracted by Ocean County Department of Planning to develop a Conservation Management Plan for the Former New Jersey Pulverizing Tract. In 2016, the County purchased the 782-acre sand and gravel quarry using funds from the Natural Lands Trust. The County’s restoration objectives incorporate ecological improvements, extension of public trails access to and through the site, and establishment of a long-term landscape design lending itself to sustainable, cost-effective stewardship as a key Natural Lands Trust preserve.

To understand the site, Princeton Hydro assessed the exisiting conditions and found that most of the site was degraded landscape from nine decades of continuous sand and gravel extraction. We conducted a water quality assessment, hydrologic monitoring, fishery survey, soil sampling, and wetland delineation. With the exception of a forest perimeter buffer, nearly all land within the site was mined and lowered substantially in base elevation. The result is a bowl-like landscape of exposed and compacted soils, forest, and wetland areas, a sterile 42-acre lake, mining roads, ATV tracks, steep slopes, ruts, and soil piles.

Princeton Hydro prepared the Conservation Management Plan, which responds to Ocean County’s directive by presenting a composite view for land restoration as a mosaic of open water, wetland, emergent meadow, grassland, and forest linked by miles of new recreational trails. The site’s proposed public access system combines 8.1 miles of planned pedestrian paths and multi-use bicycle trails. All trails will connect with Ocean County’s Barnegat Branch Trail, an existing 15.6-mile regional facility that runs for 1.4 miles through the site’s eastern reach. The plan also contains a unique 3.0-mile water trail that connects existing dead-end mining channels through a series of excavated shallow cuts.

The water trail will unlock a range of paddling routes that offer kayakers and canoeists unequaled access to restored and protected ponds, wetlands, fishing and picnicking coves, and terrestrial zones including birding meadows and oak-pine forests. Habitat creation areas include fishery development, connecting waterways, emergent and seasonal wetlands, bogs, grassland, and an improved stream connection between the main lake and the Barnegat Bay. The plan also proposes to preserve mixed pine-oak forest, mature pine forest, and specified wetlands and open waters.