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Pristine woods preserved Wednesday, February 06, 2002 MAHWAH As the hard, moist earth of Camp Glen Gray crunched beneath
his feet Tuesday, Bob Cunniff's mind was finally at ease. After more than a year of uncertainty, Cunniff, 38, now knows
that his two young sons will one day hike and camp in Glen Gray's pristine woods
and fish and swim in its sparkling 5-acre lake, just as he did when he was a Boy
Scout, just as generations of Scouts have done since the camp opened 85 years
ago. "These are great woods to hike, and [Lake Vreeland] is a
fantastic lake," Cunniff said at a news conference and mini-hike marking
the closing last week of a $5.1 million deal that transferred ownership of Glen
Gray's 750 acres from the Northern New Jersey Council of the Boy Scouts to
Bergen County. The sale preserves the camp for Scouting while opening it to
the public. County officials said they hope to have Glen Gray, which straddles
Mahwah and Oakland, open to the public by late spring or early summer. Under the terms of the deal, The Friends of Glen Gray, a
private group of current and former Scouts and Scoutmasters such as Cunniff who
sought to preserve the camp for Scouting, will manage the camp's 200-acre core
area, which includes Lake Vreeland and nearly two-dozen cabins and lodges. "This is a tremendous day," said Friends trustee
John Hartinger. "We're very excited at the opportunity." County Executive William "Pat" Schuber called the
purchase a "dream come true." "Bergen County is taking another stand against
overdevelopment and preserving our natural heritage," Schuber said.
"I've personally looked forward to this for several years." When the Boy Scouts announced its plan to sell the nation's
longest continuously operating Scout camp last year, the move prompted fears
that private developers would buy the site to build luxury homes. The Scouts said the camp was expendable and that they needed
the money from its sale to offset decreased funding in recent years, but added
they wouldn't sell to developers. The threat of bulldozers razing a century of memories never
came to pass. In May, the Scouts accepted a $5.1 million bid from the county and
the Trust for Public Land, a non-profit land preservation group that brokered
the deal. The county contributed $2.7 million from funds it had put
aside for land preservation. The state chipped in $2 million in Green Acres
money, and the Trust for Public Land and two private organizations, the Victoria
Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, contributed $250,000. It's not yet clear how access to the camp's core area will be
managed. There's limited parking at Glen Gray, which is accessible only by a
winding, one-lane access road off Route 202. Hikers can reach the camp's woods
from Camp Tamarack and the Ramapo Valley Reservation, county-owned properties
that border Glen Gray. County and Friends officials are expected to work out
access details in the next few months. Terrance Nolan, the Trust for Public Land project manager who
brokered the deal, said he was impressed with the relatively quick and painless
negotiations of the Glen Gray transaction. "I've never come across a piece of property that was the
object of so much passion, concern, and such a willingness to preserve," he
said. |
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