By Rob Jennings, Daily Record

ROCKAWAY TWP. -- A local environmental group is joining the township and New Jersey Sierra Club in opposing a Highlands law exemption won by a proposed mega-church on Green Pond Road.

The Upper Rockaway River Watershed Association's president, Constance Stroh of Randolph, wrote a letter to the state Department of Environmental Protection urging the withdrawal of an exemption the DEP granted to the church building plan late last month.

"Our goal is to encourage water quality in the Rockaway River," Stroh said on Monday.

Stroh's letter was dated Oct. 19, one day after the township filed a notice of appeal with the state appellate division in Trenton charging that the DEP misapplied the two-month-old law in granting the church's exemption request.

Christ Church's spokesman, Marc Weinstein, responded Monday by saying that critics of the DEP's decision -- including the Sierra Club, which passed a resolution Oct. 9 opposing the exemption -- were motivated by "a self-serving agenda that we believe is not in the best interests of Rockaway Township."

Weinstein said that the 5,000-member church's proposal -- including a 2,512-seat sanctuary, private K-5 school, fellowship hall, recreation fields and other facilities -- would result in environmental improvements at the 107-acre, former Agilent Technologies site.

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"The church will not be creating the type of environmental problems that were there when Agilent was in operation," Weinstein said, explaining that the church would implement a new drainage system while reducing fertilizers and herbicides.

Mayor Louis Sceusi, a planning board member, said Monday that he couldn't discuss the township's notice of appeal. It is the first legal motion stemming from the state's Highlands law, which placed additional restrictions on development in a 395,000-acre preservation zone that includes the Agilent site.

"There is no self-serving agenda," Sceusi said in response to Weinstein's remark.

The township's attorney, Edward J. Buzak, was also restrained in his public comments last week, saying only that the DEP "did not properly interpret" the law's exemption provision that was cited in the Christ Church case.

In granting the church's exemption request, the DEP ruled that the church's building plan fell within 125 percent of the lawfully existing impervious surfaces on the Agilent site, one of more than a dozen conditions in the law under which an exemption might be granted.

"We believe that the DEP acted responsibly in granting the church an exemption from the Highlands law," Weinstein said.

"The church is committed to having to the highest environmental standards for the site to protect the health and welfare of its congregation, residents and the surrounding habitat," Weinstein added.

Morris County Freeholder Director Jack Schrier, an appointee to the 15-member Highlands Council that has yet to be seated, questioned the wisdom of the exemption for Christ Church.

The exemption means that Christ Church's plan would not be subject to the council's review and approval.

"While what the DEP ruled on, very narrowly, meets the letter of the law, the intensity of use of this property that the church is proposing far exceeds, in my opinion, that what was contemplated for water protection up there," Schrier said.

Neither Agilent nor its predecessor, Hewlett Packard, had more than 800 employees at the site.

Schrier said that the Highlands Council, upon being seated, would ask its lawyer to determine what role it might play in the exemption process. The law gives DEP regulatory authority and the only way to appeal an exemption decision would be in court.

DEP spokeswoman Erin Phalon said Monday that the Upper Rockaway River Watershed Association's letter would be reviewed.

In the letter, Stroh charged that 20 acres of wetlands at the site had been filled in more than two decades ago.

"We are looking into the matter," responded Agilent spokesman Bob Lydum.

Lydum said that Agilent was established four years ago as a spin-off from Hewlett Packard's test and measurement operations.

Weinstein said the church's critics should look more closely at its application. The planning board will hold a tenth public hearing on Dec. 20.

"If they are concerned about environmental aspects, they should look at the plan the church has represented. They will see that there will be significant improvements to the site," Weinstein said.

"Right now, that site is not in a good situation environmentally. We believe that's why DEP OK'd this (request) and granted an exemption," Weinstein added.

While the DEP has granted at least seven exemptions so far, none have draw the intense level of scrutiny as in the Christ Church case.

"We are definitely concerned about this exemption and any sort of exemption like that needs to be really carefully looked at," said Wilma Frey, the Highlands Coalition project director for the New Jersey Conservation Foundation