Welcome to the Skylands Preservation Alliance

We are a grassroots 501(c)3 nonprofit in New Jersey made up of community residents who want to preserve the rural nature of Warren and Hunterdon Counties.
Current areas of focus include:

  • Identifying ecologically sensitive areas within the Skylands region
  • Raising awareness about potential impacts of development
  • Promoting sustainable development projects
  •  Championing Open Space and Land Preservation

As the season wraps the world in its chilly embrace, we're given a front-row seat to one of the most spectacular displays on Earth—the graceful dance of snow geese. With their pristine feathers reflecting the sun's soft light and their harmonious calls echoing through the crisp air, these elegant creatures paint a picture of pure serenity against the winter landscape.

 
A new study just came out about warehouses and their detrimental impacts. According to NJ.com, "According to the report, there are 3,034 warehouses in the Garden State that take up 527 million square feet. About one in three people in New Jersey live within a half mile of a warehouse.
The facilities reportedly generate at least 380,000 daily truck trips.
The number of warehouses in the state has grown by 35% in the last two decades and 2.7 million people (about 1 in 3) live within half a mile of these facilities, authors said."
You can view the full report here: https://cleanwater.org/.../NJ-Warehouse-Boom-Report-EDF-6

Video of tractor trailer turning onto Bloomsbury Road from the Route 173 truckstop. Note that the truck needs the entire width of the road to make the turn.

Some History

In 2009, there was a proposal for a massive truck hub in Franklin Township, Warren County. Essentially an extension of Port Newark, the plans called for more than 1000 tractor trailers a day to come through Bloomsbury and Franklin Township, threatening the federally designated Wild and Scenic Musconetcong River and the surrounding watershed, and forever changing the bucolic area in which we live. Local residents responded by uniting to form the Skylands Preservation Alliance,  delivering the clear message that this type of project is inappropriate for this part of the Skylands’ Region in terms of environmental safety, traffic safety, infrastructure capacity, and quality of life. Through our concerted efforts with the help of many friends, neighbors, local environmental non-profits and municipal government, this project was thwarted.

Since then, the blight of large, industrial truck transfer warehouses has been spreading swiftly along the I-78 corridor in nearby Lehigh Valley, and is again threatening our area.   

In 2019, another project came to the fore: a proposed million plus square feet warehouse with daily traffic from 300 employees and numerous tractor trailers, located on the Tobias Farm, across from the Musconetcong River. This project, too, would negatively impact Bloomsbury and Franklin Township with increased traffic, increased emissions, toxic runoff into the river, and the industrialization of farmland. And so, again, we are organizing to protect our home and our way of life. 

Over time, additional proposals have been raised – like Jaindl Farms in White Township (which was thankfully defeated). But that one was quickly followed by a stealthy proposal (and now the second proposal) to develop Heritage Farm in Franklin Township. Most recently, there is another large and inappropriate proposal to tear up historic Peter Smith Farm in Greenwich Township on Route 173 and replace it with another warehouse-type building surrounded by massive parking lots and discharging runoff into the Musky, while adding yet more traffic to the already congested Route 78 Exit 7 interchange.

If you moved to this area for the wildlife, the farms, the balloons, the rivers, the small town life and rural peace, be aware that these treasures are in jeopardy. We ask like-minded residents to join us in raising awareness about the reality of what these and other projects would mean to our community and to help us send our message to the developers, the townships, and to the counties: projects like these are inappropriate for the Skylands’ region.

To get involved, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to join our mailing list, like us on Facebook, and watch this space! 

THANK YOU!!!

 

Project Wins

Historic Heritage Farm

(F. Greek Project), Franklin Township, NJ
(Bloomsbury Road, Block 61 Lots 5&6)

This was the original project that drove the formation of Skylands Preservation Alliance fifteen years ago. An industrial developer, Frank Greek, proposed the “Bloomsbury Industrial Park” for this nearly 192-acre farmland lot. The project was essentially a transfer station, with 6 buildings totaling 1.44 million square feet and designed for high-volume truck dispatching. With a powerful grassroots effort, spearheaded by Skylands Preservation Alliance, the developer ulimately withdrew the application, and the project was abandoned.

Unfortunately, the site is back on our radar screen as a new developer is now in play. See Current Projects of Interest.

 

Jaindl Farms, White Township, NJ

Update: This proposal was defeated and plans to preserve this land are well underway! Congratulations to our partners at Citizens for Sustainable Development, a grassroots non-profit that sprang up to fight this project and played the lead role in this hard-won achievement!  We’re proud to have supported them at every step of their journey. Congratulations also to the various board members in White Township and Warren County who had the wisdom and foresight to see that the proposal was a very poor fit for their community. 

 

Proposed 3M-6 M sq ft. warehouse complex on hundreds of acres of established farmland adjoining the Delaware River.


Specific concerns regarding both projects include the potential for:

  • Pollution - Air/water/soil/noise/light
  • Heavy tractor trailer and increased automobile traffic on county roads
  • Longer commutes and more accidents
  • Water allocation problems/well failures
  • Plummeting property values
  • Toxins flowing into the Musconetcong and Delaware Rivers; negative impacts to water supply serving millions of downstream customers
  • Visual blight
  • Destruction of trout/wildlife habitat; negative impact on outdoor recreation

 

Current Projects of Interest


Historic Heritage Farm

Franklin Township, NJ
(Bloomsbury Road, Block 61, Lots 5 & 6)

historic heritage farm

Proposed 850,000 total square feet of space across multiple warehouses on fertile, productive farmland. This lot has streams that feed directly into the Musconetcong River, a Federally designated “Wild & Scenic River”. The Musconetcong not only impacts local water supply, but it also feeds the Delaware River which supplies drinking water to millions downstream. An earlier proposal for this land was defeated (see Project Wins). This is now a subsequent developer who is expected to submit a formal application for this proposal at some point in the future. We continue to monitor this one closely.

 

Historic Peter Smith Farm

Greenwich Township, NJ
(717 State Route 173, Block 31, Lot 12)

historic peter smith

Proposed is a 185,000 square foot building to be built on productive farmland. To our understanding, this was initially proposed as a warehouse, but since that use was disallowed within the zone, the developer is now calling it a “light manufacturing building”. However, on the most recent plans we’ve seen, not only is the scale of the building still massive, but so are the ancillary features: 54 loading docks, a 344 space parking lot, 28 van parking spaces, and 138 truck trailer stalls. (It sure sounds like a warehouse, doesn’t it?) Besides the obvious traffic concerns, particularly at the already congested Route 78 Exit 7 with expected traffic at Exit 6 as well. Additional pressing concerns include the developer’s plan to discharge water runoff directly into the sensitive Musconetcong River with expected negative environmental impacts, degrading air quality, risk to local wells, etc.

 

Historic Tobias Farm

(now owned by Yaraghi), Franklin Township, NJ
(Bloomsbury Road, Block 58, Lot 1)

tobias farm

Proposed is a 1.2 million square foot warehouse plus significant ancillary features (massive parking lots, etc.) to be built on the nearly 112-acre Tobias property. If built, the proposed warehouse would be equivalent to more than 20 Football fields (20.8333, to be exact)! This lot has intermittent streams that like others in the area flow directly into the Musconetcong River, a critical feeder to the Delaware River. Through concerted effort, the generous donations of supporters, and the efforts of our outstanding hired experts, we have held this project at bay for years, successfully suing both the Township and the NJ DEP during that time.