For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Megan Steele, megan.steele@sierraclub.org
TRENTON -- The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the DEP’s Green Acres Program today. The event is being held at the Holly Farm tract of the Menantico Ponds Wildlife Management Area, which was acquired by the state in 2019.
In 2010, during the Christie Administration, the state Board of Public Utilities narrowly authorized the sale of a 1,350-acre tract owned by Atlantic City Electric in Millville to a developer who wanted to put a golf course and senior housing on the parcel. The Sierra Club strongly objected to the proposed sale and fought to preserve the land until the state acquired it in 2019.
“The DEP is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Green Acres Program. This has been an important program for protecting land in New Jersey. The program has helped preserve critical and environmentally-sensitive lands like Holly Farms. However, the program also needs more funding and more resources. We’re currently only doing Green Acres every other year because the DEP doesn’t have enough staff to do it every year,” said Taylor McFarland, Acting Director of the Sierra Club New Jersey Chapter. “We need to put the Green back in Green Acres.”