Hon. Stewart Udall, 1994, Former Secretary of the Interior

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The Great Swamp watershed is a 55-square-mile natural bowl, formed as the last Ice Age retreated. Its five principal streams drain into and nourish the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Spanning ten towns and two counties, Great Swamp and its watershed comprise a rare and diverse ecosystem, just 25 miles west of midtown Manhattan, in the midst of a rapidly accelerating suburbia. The watershed contains 12,000 acres of public lands and harbors more than 800 species of plants and animals – 26 of them identified as threatened or endangered.

Aside from their ecological merits, the various public lands within the watershed provide educational, spiritual, economic and recreational benefits. But there’s no guarantee that these benefits will remain for future generations, for the pressures of unplanned development are a constant threat. In Morris and Somerset counties, part of New Jersey's "wealth belt," undeveloped land is being consumed at dizzying rates.

According to the Regional Planning Partnership, for example, the region's population grew 21 percent from 1976-1996 – but developed land area increased by 61 percent (Mansnerus 2000 – see "References and Further Reading"). Such landscape changes come with a price, increasing stormwater runoff, polluting regional water supplies and degrading swamp habitats. Without clean water, Great Swamp’s lifeblood, the entire ecosystem is endangered.

Two of Great Swamp's tributaries, Loantaka and Black Brooks, are already severely impaired. Largely because of such water-quality degradation, the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge has been cited by The Wilderness Society as one of the nation's ten most threatened. The Lower Passaic River has also rated poorly. In 1998, American Rivers, a conservation organization, ranked the Passaic as one of the "20 Most Endangered Rivers" in the United States.

Despite such problems, two of Great Swamp’s feeder streams, Primrose Brook and the Upper Passaic River, remain in relatively pristine condition, listed as Category I, trout-production waters by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP). To safeguard these streams and halt the decline of water quality and ecosystem function within the watershed, we must take action – immediately.

Because of concern for the region’s future, the Great Swamp Watershed Association, together with a number of partners, is initiating the Streamways Project, an ambitious effort to encourage landowners whose properties abut Primrose Brook and the Upper Passaic River to join together in donating or selling land, or conveying conservation easements, so that continuous protective buffers will border both sides of the streams in perpetuity.

We envision 40 or so miles of streamways – contiguous ribbons of protected land – along the two tributaries. The Primrose Brook streamway will connect Morristown National Historical Park in Harding and Morris Townships to the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The Upper Passaic River streamway will connect Mendham Township's Tempe Wick Reserve, Morris County's Lewis Morris Park, the New Jersey Audubon Society's Scherman-Hoffman Sanctuaries, the federally owned Cross Estate, Somerset County's Lord Stirling Park and the National Wildlife Refuge.

Establishing these streamways will accomplish several goals: preservation and enhancement of water quality; flood control; protection of the National Wildlife Refuge; and preservation of environmentally sensitive areas such as headwaters, stream corridors, threatened and endangered species' habitats, critical soils, steep slopes and wetlands.

Our Streamways Project is an outgrowth of our 1997 publication Saving Space: The Great Swamp Watershed Greenway and Open Space Plan. For that study, we took a collaborative approach, assembling a team that developed a detailed, 114-page plan for preserving open space, and thus maintaining and improving water quality, in the watershed. The plan contains specific, prioritized recommendations for each watershed municipality, and suggests ways to ensure open-space preservation. Streamways preservation is one such recommendation.

As with the publication of Saving Space, the Great Swamp Watershed Association intends to take a leadership role in the creation of Upper Passaic River and Primrose Brook streamways. But we can't do it alone. We will be working closely with our partners, who are listed toward the end of this booklet.

Most importantly, we need your help as well. As a landowner whose property abuts one of the Great Swamp's feeder streams, you are instrumental to the future of the region, the watershed and the National Wildlife Refuge. You and your neighbors have an opportunity, now, to join together to create protective buffers – streamways – along Primrose Brook and the Upper Passaic River. The following pages will explain in more detail the ecological and economic benefits of streamways creation; will describe a variety of land-protection methods; and will try to answer other questions you may have.

Thank you for reading this far. Please continue. And be assured that your participation will have a far-reaching, positive impact.

Julia M. Somers
Executive Director
Great Swamp Watershed Association