Pinelands’ Sandy Soil Gums Up Works for Ecologists, Businesses : Conservation: Sparsely populated wilderness in nation’s most densely populated state supports a $60-million-a-year industry--and fuels a classic dispute.

The sandy soil of New Jersey’s Pinelands created a quiet, delicate wilderness covering 1.1 million sparsely populated acres of the nation’s most densely populated state.

Stretching across southern New Jersey, the Pinelands National Reserve is the largest open space between Boston and Washington, D.C. One-fifth of the population of the United States lives within a five-hour drive.

It also supports a $60-million-a-year industry that provides thousands of jobs: the mining of sand that lies just beneath the pines, grasses and shrubs.

Therein lies a familiar conflict.

The pine barrens have become a battleground between environmentalists and sand miners hoping to continue a profitable trade begun in Colonial times.

The high-quality sand of the Pinelands, first used by glassmakers in the 1700s, is used in products ranging from concrete to toothpaste.

This giant sandbox sits atop an aquifer of pure, virtually untapped water equal in volume to a 75-foot-deep lake with a surface area of 1,000 square miles.

The porous soil catches nearly all rainwater falling within its 17,000 square miles. All waterways flow outward, preventing pollution of outlying cities from penetrating.

These unique conditions have created a home for many plants and animals found in few other places in the world, said Mark Morgan, acting director of the Division of Pinelands Research at Rutgers University in Camden. They include the pine barrens tree frog, blackbanded sunfish and the endangered crested yellow orchid.

The reserve, which has been designated an international biosphere by the United Nations, is also part of the Atlantic flyway for birds migrating between North and South America.

To preserve its natural state, the Pinelands Commission, created under state and federal laws to oversee the reserve, voted in May to ban new sand mines on 242,000 more acres, bringing the total to 600,000 restricted acres. Final passage is expected in January.

Within the restricted area, 14 of the 58 mines that were grandfathered in when the reserve was created continue to operate.

The commission also proposed cutting back the total acreage which those existing mines may work from 10,000 acres to 2,700 acres. But in a compromise, the commission tabled that plan for five years pending a study of the mining’s environmental impact.

The new restrictions--the commission’s first major regulatory step since the reserve was established by Congress in 1978--were applauded by environmentalists but criticized by business.

“They have overstepped their bounds,” said William J. Cleary, executive director of the New Jersey Concrete and Aggregate Assn. “They don’t have the jurisdiction to do this. If they go forward, we will litigate.”

Cleary says the proposed 2,700-acre limit on existing mines could shrink to 600 or 800 acres after buffer zones, wetlands and other areas that can’t be mined under commission rules are accounted for. That could force some mines to shut down in a few years, he said.

Both sides agree that a study is needed to assess the environmental impact of removing 11 million tons of sand a year from the Pinelands.

On a recent day at a Morie Co. mine, sand was being sucked through a pipe that runs 60 feet down into the center of a 110-acre blue-green lake, created by the mining as water fills in the dredged area.

Giant dunes of various grades of sand surround a nearby plant sitting on bulldozed ground.

It’s not a pretty sight, but one that the industry says can be easily restored to its former beauty--with the addition of the lake--for about $3,000 an acre.

Nearby is a played-out mine that has undergone reclamation, as required by law. A lake is surrounded by gently sloping, grass-covered shores that lead into generous pine and oak forests. At another restored site, outside the restricted area, plans are being made for a subdivision of lakefront homes.

Morie President Ron Johnson offered these sites as proof that industry and conservation aren’t mutually exclusive.

But environmentalists say the bucolic scene is deceptive.

“They create these beautiful, crystal-clear lakes that aren’t native to the Pinelands, and there hasn’t been any research on how that might affect the aquifer,” said Sally Price, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, an environmental group.

Commission biologist Robert Zampella said the lakes aren’t a natural habitat for the 15 fish species and numerous plants native to the pine barrens.

But Johnson contends fish are found in the mine lakes, and on a recent day flocks of geese were seen gliding on the surface.

Johnson says Morie Co. plans to sue if the commission implements its proposed changes, under which allowable mining acreage at his operation would be reduced from 2,325 to 234 acres and the life of the mine shortened from about 40 years to 10.

“That’s disastrous to us,” Johnson said.

The industry contends the commission’s action violates the intent of the federal legislation creating the Pinelands reserve. The law authorized the commission to develop a land-use plan, but said it must “recognize existing economic activities . . . and provide for the protection and enhancement of . . . indigenous industries.”

“The commission is losing that focus,” Cleary said.

But the commission says goals for the land are clearly laid out in the legislation and overwhelmingly stress protection of natural resources.

Pinelands Commission executive director Terrence Moore says that even as much as a study is needed to resolve questions about the impact of mining, it won’t be done unless business funds it.

“They’re the ones who have put forth the position that they don’t have an impact, and the commission’s willingness to postpone action was based on some of the statements they made,” Moore said. “If there’s no study, in five years we’ll be discussing the same issue with the same unknowns being thrown out on the floor.”

But sand miners question the panel’s motives. They fear that whatever the study finds, the commission will use it to further restrict mining.

“Obviously we’re not going to pay for a study that’s going to put us out of business,” said Robert Ellis, plant manager at Ward Sand and Materials Co., whose sand mine has operated in the Pinelands since 1972.

Cleary said the commission “has our backs to the wall . . . so their answer is to close an entire industry because they don’t have the money to study it.”