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draft special resource study Park/Field AreaiW ASO Review - August 1996 NEW JERSEY SHORE OF THE DELA WARE BAY NEW JERSEY United States Department of the Interior - National Park Service This draft study has been prepared to provide Congress and the public with information about the resources in the Delsea region study area in New Jersey and how they relate to the criteria for becoming a unit of the national park system. These criteria have been applied by the professional staff of the National Park Service. Publication and transmittal of this study should not be considered an endorsement or a commitment by the National Park Service to seek or support either specific legislative authorization for the pr()ject or appropriations for its implementation. Authorization and funding for any new commitments by the National Park Service will have to be considered in light of competing priorities for existing units of the national park system and other programs. This report was prepar'ed by the National Park Service, United States Department of Interior. For additional copies or more information contact: National Park Service, Denver Service Center DSC-RP 12795 W. Alameda Parkway Denver, Colorado 80225-0287 (303) 969-2361 11 New Jersey boasts a broad range of natural and cultural features and retains a surprising balance of urban and rural settings. Despite the proximity to Philadelphia, New York, and the growing Northeast metropolitan conidor, New Jersey's lower Delaware River and bay coasts remain relatively undisturbed. New Jersey has historically acted as a conduit for the growth of its metropolitan neighbors, which represent a market for agricultural and industrial products. Geographer Charles A. Stansfield Jr. offered the corollary that New Jersey is a microcosm of the United States - with features indigenous to its own industrialized north and agrarian south. It is a unique symbiosis founded on the interaction of land and water. Through the late 19th century, inhabitants of Salem, Cumberland, and Cape May Counties depended upon the water for food, employment, transportation, and energy. Fishermen, whalers, and oystermen gathered shellfish from the salty river beds, and goods and produce were tr'ansported to Philadelphia markets via boat. With the arrival of the railroad, 200 years of dependence upon water travel was drastically reduced. The railroad fueled local prosperity until the early 20th century when the many industries founded on natural resour'ces began to decline. In addition, an increasing number of automobiles, commercial trucks, and the highways on which they traveled decreased the dependence on rail and waterways. The combined impact has left South Jersey an isolated, economically static region dependent upon agriculture, tourism, and remnants of once'-prosperous maritime and industrial activities. For'this reason a variety of cultural and natural resources remain intact, and others continue to quietly sustain a long and important tradition of agriculture, maritime, and industrial pursuits. (paraphrased from Historic Themes and Resources within the New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail [NPS 1991]). iii SUMMARY BACKGROUND collection. Public meetings, as well as meetings with federal, state, and local agencies, have In 1988, Public Law 100-515 established the occurred since 1993. A draft national New Jersey Coastal Heritage Trail Route and significance statement was completed in 1995 directed the National Park Service (NPS) to and sent to the NPS Washington Office for inventory all natural and cultural resources in review; they concurred· that the area was New Jersey that are generally east of the Garden nationally significant, thus clearing the way for State Parkway from the Sandy Hook Unit of the next steps of determining suitability and Gateway National Recreational Area south to feasibility. Public focus group meetings were Cape May and west along the Delaware Bay to then held in late 1995 by the National Park Deepwater. This area was later subdivided into Service to solicit comments and discuss options regions based on geography and major based on information in the significance resources. The southernmost Delsea region statement. Comments and additions from these covers 450 square miles, encompassing western meetings have been incorporated into this Cape May and southern Cumberland and Salem document. Counties. This area is inhabited by people and wildlife that depend on the vast tributaries, estuaries, and freshwater wetlands and SIGNIFICANCE watersheds. The study area represents the only estuarine system in the Atlantic Coastal Plain and in the PURPOSE national park system that was formed by glacial processes that drowned a major river to form a The purpose of this special resource study is to bay ,.- instead of being formed by a barrier evaluate the Delsea region's resources for island(s). In this region many biogeographic possible inclusion in the national park system provinces come together, resulting in over- using the requirements set forth in the NPS lapping habitat types and high biodiversity. The publication Criteria for Parklands and NPS region's forests, tidal wetlands, swamp forests, Management Policies. For inclusion, an area and other habitats are home to one of the largest must meet criteria for national significance, concentrations of endangered and threatened suitability, and feasibility. An additional way to species on the Atlantic Coast. No other evaluate the level of significance of the resources nationally recognized areas in the Atlantic being considered for inclusion is to see how they Coastal Plain address the estuarine/salt marsh apply toparticular NPS themes. These themes complex as completely as the study area. These ar'elisted in History and Prehistory in the facts, combined with the fact that the area is National Park System and the National North America's second largest shorebird Historic Landmarks Program. The study migration site, makes the area's natural outlines three management strategies based on resources nationally significant. private, local, state, and federal ownership and local values. The salt marsh and estuarine environments of the study area also provided a setting where cultural diversity is extensive. The landscapes of PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT the study area reflect the cultural influence of Native Americ~s and the original European The study of the Delsea region began in 1993 settlers including Swedes, Finns, Germans, with reconnaissance surveys, research, and data British, and the Dutch as well as later v SUMMARY settlements by African-Americans, Jews, and excellent and feasible example of a cooperative Eastern Europeans. The study area would be one national park unit - a partnership park. The of the first national park system units predicated presence of a nationally recognized area would on the NPS "American Ways of Life" theme and assist in the preservation and conservation of would represent six subthemes - slavery and natural and cultur'al resources and provide plantation life, farming communities, ethnic substantial economic benefits to the local and communities, consumer society of the 20th regional economies. century, domesticity and family life, and occupational and economic classes. In fact, it would be the first unit to represent more than MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS three of the "American Ways of Life" subthemes. Three concepts for managing, preserving, and interpreting significant natural and cultural The established settlements as well as the resour'ces in the study ar'eaJDelsea region have natur'al resources and cultural diversity of the also been developed. The concepts range from a study area present an exceptional combination of continuation of current methods of operation resources that reflect the region's developments with no new federal initiative to the creation of a over a period of 300 years and its integral part in new national park system unit. New additions to a national context. There is no other area known the national park system will not usually be that has superior or more comprehensive recommended if other arrangements can provide resources to interpret (tell the story of) this adequate protection for the resources and American cultural landscape than the New opportunities for public enjoyment. Proposed Jersey shore of the Delaware Bay. partnership options include alternatives for varying levels of protection and interpretation and of federal government involvement. The SUITABILITY concepts for management are summarized below. Based on site studies and other research, the study team concluded that there is no other area in.the national park system that (1) compre- CONCEPT A: CONTINUATION OF hensively interprets the nationally significant EXISTING CONDITIONS elements of the "American Ways of Life" theme in this type of setting, (2) accomplishes this Under this concept, the National Park Service interpretation in an ar'ea that contains a micro- would not actively participate in the preservation cosm of the American cultural landscape, and or interpretation of the area's resources. The (3) contains internationally renowned natural focus of this concept would be on the study resources. Evaluated under NPS new ar'ea area's natural resources and independent actions criteria, this study found that the resources in the by local and state governments and nonprofit Delsea region are nationally significant and meet organizations. the NPS criteria for suitability. Although there would not be any new impacts as a result of implementing this concept, the