Another cliffhanger for Palisades

RELEASE: May 29, 2009 – Volume XLI, No. 22

The New Jersey Palisades, one of our state’s iconic landscapes, rise majestically from the west bank of the Hudson River. As with many special places in New Jersey, however, the insatiable appetite of sprawl is threatening this 200 million-year-old landmark.

The latest threat is a new strip mall, something we never seem to have enough of! The good news is that we can all add our voices to those fighting to protect the Palisades.

The beauty of the sheer cliffs rising 350 to 550 feet from the river’s edge has lent a dramatic feel to anything near them – from the Perils of Pauline movies shot there in the early 1900s, to the popular Palisades Amusement Park in the 1960s, to the magnificent Palisades Interstate Park today.

Though many of the best-known Palisades sites are north of the George Washington Bridge, the 20-mile-long geologic formation extends southward all the way to Jersey City in Hudson County. The Palisades were a tempting target for quarrying in the 1890s, sparking the New Jersey State Federation of Women's Clubs and others to step in to save them.

While significant sections of the northern Palisades were ultimately preserved, the southern portion was not. Buildings of all shapes and sizes sprouted around the cliffs of New Jersey’s “Gold Coast.” Today, with advancements in construction methods and a shrinking inventory of open land, developers are setting their sights on the cliffs themselves, threatening to chip away in a few years a work of art that nature took millions to produce.

To build the proposed strip mall in North Bergen developers would have to remove extraordinarily large quantities of soil and rock from the base of the cliffs, and install metal nets to protect against falling rocks from above. For all this effort and disturbance, the mall would offer nothing unique – just the ubiquitous bank branch, chain drugstore and upscale coffee shop. The town has approved the project, hoping to reap $200,000 in annual property taxes, and has hired an independent engineering firm to back its conclusions.

The Hudson County Planning Board, however, is concerned the commercial development could destabilize the cliffs and roadway above, and exacerbate problems on an already flood-prone section of River Road below.

In addition to the county’s concerns, many local citizens oppose the strip mall and are mobilizing to save the cliffs. A group known as the Coalition to Preserve Palisades Cliffs is appealing to state officials and elected representatives to enforce regulations designed to protect the cliffs.

The citizens group has created an online petition at www.thepetitionsite.com/2/Coalition-to-Preserve-the-Palisades-Cliffs to lobby the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection, as well as the Hudson County Freeholders and county executive, to nix the project – which could come before the county Planning Board in June. One nice feature of the petition site is that signers can also post their comments.

We may have gotten the term “cliffhanger” from the way the Palisades were used in the Perils of Pauline, but their fate shouldn’t be a cliffhanger. One look at these majestic cliffs should be enough to convince anyone that they are a part of our natural heritage worth saving.

So speak up for the Palisades, and I hope you will visit New Jersey Conservation Foundation’s website at www.njconservation.org or contact me at info@njconservation.org, if you would like more information about conserving New Jersey’s precious land and natural resources.

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