New Jersey Field Office Environmental Contaminants Biologist Clay Stern, working with State partners, has acquired and protected in perpetuity one of the largest tracts of unbroken forest in southern Gloucester County, New Jersey. Acquisition of this approximately 100-acre site protects ground water supplies and recharge as well as surface water quality, and conserves wildlife habitat. One half of the $800,000 acquisition cost was provided by damages for natural resource injuries at the Chemical Leaman Tank Lines Superfund Site; the State's Green Acres Program provided the balance. The parcel is predominantly a mosaic of mixed hardwood forest and forested wetlands. Numerous vernal pools provide important breeding habitat for a variety of amphibians. Headwaters of Oldmans Creek, a tidally influenced tributary of the Delaware River that supports anadromous fish, originate within or pass through the site. A Federally-listed plant, swamp pink, occurs on adjacent lands.

The New Jersey Conservation Foundation will manage the parcel as a regional hub in its Garden State Greenway project, a statewide network of interconnected parks, trails, natural areas, farmland, and historic places. The NJFO has also received written concurrence from the State of New Jersey on a restoration plan to acquire additional land for incorporation into both a National Wildlife Refuge and a State Park, and to collaborate in other restoration actions offsetting natural resource injuries from the Chemical Leaman Tank Lines Superfund Site. New Jersey's Office of Natural Resource Restoration and Green Acres Program, the South Jersey Land and Water Trust, the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, and landowners Bruce and Jane Daniels assisted Mr. Stern in his efforts.