New Jersey Audubon is pleased to be part of the campaign to strengthen and rewrite the coastal (CAFRA) regulations, which once again promise lots of growth in more than 96 "Centers," but fail to protect the remaining good coastal uplands in Planning Area 4-5. This is a two-part struggle. The Legislature must also close the "loophole" which allows residential developers to escape the impact of any state CAFRA regulation, good or bad, as long as they build under 24 units.

Here is our sense of how the campaign is going. The conservation "community" is united in opposition to the rules, and you know that doesn't happen very often on land use issues. The real question is whether we can take this campaign beyond the always necessary letters and phone calls - to a new level of public awareness which brings maximum pressure on the Governor and the Legislature in an election year. We have to do this in a climate of low key press coverage. We have been concerned for some time about the poor environmental coverage in the Star Ledger.

Ever since their one good editorial on Jan. 25, 1998 ("A role for the state in developement")it seems they have been in retreat, paying less and less attention to land-use, with crucial articles being buried deep (page 48 coverage on our very recent CAFRA press conference, even though their reporter, Anthony Twyman was there, they only ran an AP story of a few paragraphs) - and they gave Judy Jengo of NJDEP a story on the rules before most of us had read them. I know first hand that the builders were on the phone the day the good Jan.'98 editorial ran, because I called to thank the editor and he had just gotten off the line with them...

But now, seemingly out of the blue, they have blasted the Goververnor's proposed coastal rules (yesterday, Sun. Aug. 29) with an editorial headlined "A sham attempt to Stop Shore Sprawl." It is all we could have hoped for on both the rules and closing the CAFRA loophole.

And this past Friday, August, 27th, NJAS, Sierra and ALS met with Assemblyman Reed Gusciora (D, D-15) and an aide from Senator Shirley Turner's office (D, D-15) to begin drafting legislation to close the CARFA loophole. Assemblyman Gusciora indicated he thought other

Democrats would follow and hopefully, some Republican co-sponsors. Judy Jengo of NJDEP was invited, but did not attend. These are hopeful signs, but a lot of hard work must follow.

Our job is to get the Governor to revise the regs., and her and the legislature to change the law to close the loophole. One without the other will not be effective. We have enclosed, as a Word '97 attachment, our brief two pages of CAFRA rules comments, and whom to call by October 1, 1999 with your criticisms. But we also think you need to call Senator Donald DeFrancesco (R, D-22), the Senate President at 908-322-5500, to tell him support closing the CAFRA loophole legislatively; ditto for the Assembly Speaker, Jack Collins (R, D-3) at 609-769-3633. On the Democratic side, the Senate Minority leader, Richard Codey (D, D- 27) needs to hear from us at 973-731-6770 and so does Assembly Minority leader Joseph Doria (D, D-31) at 201-437-5150.

Calls and letters are needed, but we also think that winning this struggle at the coast will require imaginative symbolic actions and protests, which capture the attention of the public and the media - and remind the reluctant Legislature that meaningful coastal reform is long overdue. We made a start by flying an aerial sign over the Cape

May-Wildwood beaches in August (something that was obvious but not done before) to protest the terrible Cape May sewer amendments. We'll have to top that in order to keep this campaign momentum up. Put you thinking caps on and don't forget to look at your wallets to see if you can't help us out. All coastal campaign money we receive will either be spent on media ads or signs (air, land, sea, & electromagnetic spectrum) or law suits to defend the Cape May peninsula.

Thanks - this is the best opportunity we've had in more than a decade to change the status quo at the coast.