New Jersey’s historic School of Conservation got a fresh start Wednesday when the state Department of Environmental Protection signed an agreement allowing a nonprofit group of its supporters to run full education programs at the 240-acre property for the next 20 years.
With the signing of the lease, the school can once again host students, teachers, and researchers for overnight visits. Hundreds of thousands of New Jersey students have learned about nature and environmental science in the school’s 74-year history, according to school staff.
“We’re really quite thrilled about it all and quite excited to move forward,” said Kerry Kirk Pflugh, president of the Friends of the New Jersey School of Conservation, which also signed the lease. Her father directed the school for 37 years, and she grew up there, calling it a “quite magical” place, steeped in history, full of creatures from bears to salamanders to pileated woodpeckers, and boasting a protected trout stream of exceptional quality.
About 5,000 students took hands-on courses each year and did field work with environmental scientists at the school in Stokes State Forest near the Delaware Water Gap.
But its future has been uncertain in recent years. In 2020, just as the state became the first in the nation to require climate change education, Montclair State University ended its four-decade oversight of the school, citing budgetary shortfalls from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Friends formed soon after to save the school. Since 2021, the group has hosted limited educational programs at the school, but not overnight stays, due to regulations. A state law was passed in 2022 to designate the Friends as the school’s managers.
Financially, however, the school is not out of the woods. A dam built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression will need repairs costing several million dollars, so the Friends are planning a fundraising campaign. Lake Wapalanne, which the dam contains, is central to the school’s mission and appeal, but the dam must be able to withstand a 100-year storm. Such storms are becoming more common due to climate change, Pflugh explained.
The state is expected to complete its dam study in the next three to six months and will likely require a new brick structure to protect land downhill should a storm cause water to flow over the dam.
Last year, three former governors, James J. Florio, Christine Todd Whitman, and Thomas H. Kean, voiced their support for the nonprofit’s plan for managing the school, which they said was in line with the school’s original vision and brought together “about a dozen stakeholders from all over the state who have pledged to provide programming and conduct research at the site.”
Pflugh said Rutgers professor Frank Gallagher, director of the university’s Environmental Planning Program, is coordinating research with other state universities.
On Wednesday, Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette hailed the lease agreement, saying, “In the face of our changing climate, it is more important than ever that we equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary so that they, too, one day will ensure the generations behind them understand why we must do everything possible to ensure the conservation and protection of our natural environment.”
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Tina Kelley may be reached at tkelley@njadvancemedia.com.