Pine Barrens land deal to close soon

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Pine Barrens land deal to close soon



Sunday, December 28, 2003

Group set to buy DeMarco's 9,400 acres

By LAWRENCE HAJNA
Courier-Post Staff
WOODLAND


The completion of the largest private conservation deal ever in New Jersey will go down to the wire - but it will go down, says the nonprofit group that negotiated the $12 million deal.

The New Jersey Conservation Foundation expects to complete the purchase of 9,400 acres in the heart of the Pine Barrens on Tuesday or Wednesday.

The foundation is buying the land from a family cranberry operation, once the state's largest, run by Burlington County political power broker J. Garfield DeMarco.

The foundation is required by contract to complete the sale by the end of the year. But the foundation and DeMarco could agree to push the closing into early 2004 if necessary, Richard C. Ryan, the foundation's chief operating officer, said last week.

The closing, initially expected in mid-December, has been delayed by technical details - mainly completion of surveys for titles, he said.

The property is made up of dozens of parcels the DeMarco family cobbled together over the decades in building one of the nation's largest cranberry empires, Ryan said.

Each of the parcels, ranging from an acre to 1,800 acres, needs detailed surveys and title work, Ryan said.

"It's complex," he said of the task.

DeMarco, the company's president, added that just a few details need to be worked out. "It's such a huge area. It's just a long and tedious process," he said.

Sprawling across more than 14 square miles of eastern Burlington County, the property covers an area larger than South Jersey's largest city, Camden.

It is home to picturesque cranberry bogs, white cedar swamps and pitch pine forests in the core of the Pinelands National Reserve.

The acquisition will create the state's largest system, by far, of protected wild lands by linking more than 200,000 acres of state forests and wildlife management areas, including Wharton, Brendan T. Byrne and Bass River state forests.

After closing the deal, the conservation foundation plans to launch a yearlong study to determine a management plan for the land, interlaced by more than a dozen streams at the headwaters of the West Branch of the Wading River.

The group expects to open the area to the public for passive recreational uses such as hiking, bird watching, and possibly horseback riding. Ecological focus

But its primary objective is to preserve the land for bald eagles, Pine Barrens tree frogs, Atlantic white cedars and other ecological treasures.

"It's an important piece of land," Ryan said. "The Pine Barrens have been designated a biosphere reserve by the United Nations, so it has international recognition as an important ecosystem. There are a lot of people who think it's a special place."

The $12 million price - or $1,300 per acre - is half the land's actual value, the conservation foundation adds.

The state, however, has balked at contributing to the purchase because the land already has been protected from most types of development through deed restrictions that netted the company about $7 million.

DeMarco is the longtime chairman of the Burlington County Bridge Commission and is former boss of the county's Republican Party. He has long been well-connected in state GOP circles.

The bridge commission is embroiled in a controversy over secretly paying state Sen. Martha Bark, R-Medford, $100,000 for part-time consulting services without being able to provide proof that she performed the work.

Politics aside, the conservation foundation fears the land could one day be cleared for logging or more cranberry farming if it isn't purchased outright.

DeMarco and his brother, Mark A. DeMarco of Hammonton, and their sister, Anna Lynne Papinchak of Washington state, have no heirs interested in running a cranberry farm.

DeMarco said the farm has not released a crop since 2001, but he has retained the right to farm cranberries on the land for two years following settlement.

This permits him to keep 135,000 shares of stock in Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. - and continue to wield a good deal of power in the Massachusetts-based growers' cooperative.

DeMarco has tangled with Ocean Spray's board of directors, alleging in lawsuits that its mismanagement has financially harmed growers, especially smaller growers.

DeMarco last week cited continued financial woes within the cranberry industry specifically and agriculture in general for getting out of the business.

"You attend farm meetings, it's like attending a senior citizens' convention," he said. "Agriculture in general is becoming a thing of the past. There's not much we can do to alter this process."

Mark A. DeMarco, an officer in A.R. DeMarco Enterprises, in a lawsuit filed in state Superior Court this year maintained his brother's motives for selling the land are less than altruistic, and briefly tried to stop the sale.

He agreed with the goal of preserving the land, but he alleged his brother led a lavish lifestyle and was selling it at a bargain price to hide his "wasting of corporate assets and mismanagement." He amended the suit, however, to allow the sale to proceed.

This allowed the conservation foundation to exercise its option to buy the land in August. At that time, the foundation had raised the $5 million necessary to exercise the option through donations from philanthropic organizations, corporations and private contributors. Donations

The largest donation came from the Victoria Foundation, which contributed more than $1 million. The foundation, based in Glen Ridge, Essex County, has been working with the conservation foundation for years to protect land, especially in the Pinelands, said Catherine McFarland, the group's executive officer.

Although the DeMarco land is protected by regulations and deed restrictions, the purchase "guarantees preservation of that land," McFarland said.

Other large donations came from pharmaceuticals giant Johnson & Johnson, PSEG and the William Penn Foundation, Ryan said.

Contributions from individuals ranged from as little as $1 to as much as $300,000, the latter coming from a former New Jersey resident who asked to remain anonymous, Ryan said.

The foundation continues to solicit donations and hopes to eventually win state or federal contributions as it raises the $7 million balance due to A.R. DeMarco Enterprises in installments through January 2008.

"We hope to have it paid off long before that," Ryan said.

The conservation foundation says it needs to raise another $3 million for "long-term stewardship."

Jeff Tittel of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club supports the deal. But he worries the conservation foundation's extensive fund-raising efforts could siphon away private funds needed to preserve lands facing imminent development threats, especially in North Jersey's Highlands.

"There's only so much money out there," Tittel said. "The DeMarco project is a very worthy project, but there are many other worthy projects." Parker honored

The DeMarco tract will be named the Franklin E. Parker Preserve, in honor of the conservation foundation's president during the 1960s.

Now in his 80s, Parker served as the first chairman of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission. He was noted for having a low-key temperament that helped defuse potentially explosive land development issues during the early days of the Pinelands Comprehensive Management Plan.

Parker's wife, Margaret H. Parker, and his son, John F. Parker, are trustees of the Victoria Foundation. But the naming of the parcel after Franklin Parker was not a condition of the donation, McFarland said.

"We did not know this when we made the grant, and it wasn't dependent on it," she said.

The cranberry bogs, about 800 acres in total, will be named the DeMarco Family Cranberry Meadows Natural Area, Ryan said.

"I'm very proud of what my father and I accomplished and of all those people who worked for us over the years to make it successful," DeMarco said.

Now 65, DeMarco, a graduate of Yale Law School, said he hasn't solidified his plans. But he said his future may include working toward a doctorate, practicing law, "perfecting my knowledge of ancient languages," or writing a book.

"My own life is much broader (than growing cranberries)," he said. "My life isn't dull, and I don't think it will be dull."
 
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