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No. 20 Vol. 7
My Life Publications • 1-800-691-7549
July 2024
800-939-JUNK
New Jersey’s Great Swamp War
T
By Henry M. Holden he Great Swamp of New Jersey is nestled within a 55-square mile natural basin and is the remnant of the bottom of the once-mighty Glacial Lake Passaic that around 15,000 to 11,000 years ago stretched into what is in Morris County, in northern New Jersey. The lake was formed by the melting waters of the retreating Wisconsin Glacier at the end of the last Ice Age. The glacier had pushed a moraine ahead of its advance, a combination of soil and rocks that blocked the existing outlet for the waters that drained into the area. As the retreating glacier melted, the waters rose to create the lake before a new outlet had began to allow the water to drain at a much higher elevation. Millions of years ago, the continent of Africa collided violently with North America, pushing up great mountains to the north and west. Erosion has since worn them down to size. When Africa broke away, hot molten rock flowed up from the earth’s interior, creating the Watchung Mountains to the south and east. Again, erosion has taken its toll. About 18,000 years ago, the Wisconsin Glacier began to cease its southerly motion and melt, leaving behind a great pile of rock and soil along a line from Chatham to Morristown. The retreating Wisconsin Glacier left the New Jersey wetlands in its wake some 11,000 years ago. As the last parts of the glacier receded, it formed the basin of the Great Swamp. Blocked by the Watchung Mountains, the glacier left behind another great pile of earth and rocks
to the west of the Great Swamp basin. Today, that pile is known as Basking Ridge. Today, the wilderness area accounts for the eastern half of the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, which serves as a resting and nesting area for over 250 migratory birds. With miscellaneous flora, including cattail marshes, wet grasslands and forests, the area is home to a number of species outside of migratory birds, including rare bog turtles. Wood turtles, blue-spotted salamanders, mice, skunks, raccoons, coyotes and deer also call the Great Swamp home. It is a natural oasis in an area that is mostly suburban, making the refuge an outstanding area for migrating waterfowl to stop, rest and feed on their migration. Morris County, among the fastest growing counties in the New Jersey, is nestled amid rolling hills, broad valleys and glittering lakes. It is also approximately 30 miles northwest of New York City, and that made it vulnerable to plunder by land/airport developers. The swamp war began in 1959, when the powerful Port of New York and New Jersey Authority announced plans to construct a huge 10,000 acre “jetport” 26 miles west of New York City in a little-known place called the Great Swamp. In the name of progress, entire towns would be obliterated, the aquifer and wildlife destroyed, and a way-of-life was threatened for thousands of people if this happened. he Jersey Jetport Site Association,(JJSA) was the first to organize in opposition. Their efforts to prevent the development of an airport in the swamp became
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public knowledge on December 3, 1959, when four of its members (Kafi Benz, Joan Kelly, Esty Weiss, and Betty White) were expelled from a meeting at the Essex House in Newark that had been organized to generate support for its construction. The events that followed became one of the more defining environmental confrontations of its time - a grassroots movement that started in a local high school and a decade later required the actions of a President and an Act of Congress to stop the project. It also led to the creation of a national treasure, a wildlife refuge, the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The historic battle of the Morris County residents against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey ended on Sept. 30, 1968, with the designation of the Great Swamp as a National Wilderness Area. It was one of the first sieges to pit a grass roots effort continued on page 8