Ogdensburg council discusses Sparta Mountain plan

OGDENSBURG — A special meeting was held in the Ogdensburg fire house March 28 to review the Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area Forest Stewardship Plan in addition to the Council's regular meeting.
Sharon Petzinger of the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection's Fish and Wildlife division's state representative, gave a presentation regarding the Sparta Mountain Stewardship Plan. Other representatives from Fish and Wildlife, the commissioner's office, and N.J. Audubon also attended to answer public questions.
Two Ogdensburg residents attended the meeting.
Petzinger explained the plan is to protect and manage the species and their habitats on Sparta Mountain. She added, due to no trees in the forest being over 100 years old, the forest is way off of the natural age diversity, causing the song bird species to decline.
She said the NJDEP will not clear cut every year, but will do treatment every year including: active treatment, shelter wood, allowing a percentage of canopy, single tree selection, allowing more sunlight, and seed tree harvest.
Officials in attendance agreed there would not be anything intensive happening near Heater's Pond, and there would not be any work on borough property.
Mayor Steve Ciasullo, Council President George Hutnick, and Councilman Robert McGuire met earlier with three divisions of the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection to discuss the plan.
Ciasullo said the borough's main concern was storm water and the effect on the Heater's Pond Dam armoring project. Per the engineering department, the run-off from the plan would have no effect on the project.
In order to help the borough, Ciasullo said the state and N.J. Audubon will look at hemlocks killed around the pavilion by a disease.
John Cecil, vice president for stewardship N.J. Audubon Society, offered working with the school system in presenting a curriculum regarding the ecology of the forest and planting cedar trees.