DiVincenzo Announces Aggressive Planting Program to Accelerate Eagle Rock Reservation Forest Regeneration

Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. announced plans Monday to accelerate the regrowth of the forest and address flooding and aesthetics in Eagle Rock Reservation. The improvements are part of the county executive's deer management program and ongoing initiative to restore and revitalize the reservation. 

The reforestation program calls for five enclosures to be created in Eagle Rock Reservation that will range in size from 2.28 acres to 1.22 acres. The amount of land from the 408-acre reservation to be included in these five areas will total about 8.5 acres. There will be 13.535 native plant species planted in the enclosures to start the reforestation process. The eight-foot high locked enclosures are anticipated to remain in place for about 25 years.

"The damage caused by deer overbrowsing has put the forest in Eagle Rock into a critical state and replanting native species is essential to restoring the health of our natural treasures," said DiVincenzo.

Construction and planting is scheduled to begin this fall and be complete by the summer 2011, according to Kathy Salisbury, Essex County Parks horticulturalist.

Native plants for all four layers of a healthy forest — groundcovers, shrubs, understory trees and canopy trees — will be planted in the enclosures and, over time, this new vegetation will provide the seeds to reforest other areas of the reservation. 

Salisbury said there's a distinct horizontal "browsing line" in the forest edge at a height of about four-and-a-half feet delineating where the deer have eaten all vegetation from the ground up to this level.

As well as planting, Salisbury said the plan includes removal of non-native plants from within the enclosures, as well as areas outside the fencing to create space for native plants to repopulate. 

County officials worked with Eagle Rock Reservation Conservancy members on the plan. 

"We are bringing Eagle Rock Reservation back to green — not only in the trees, but all the way to the ground and making it the way it deserves to be," said Jim Cristiano, Eagle Rock Reservation Conservancy president.

The Essex County deer management program has reduced the deer population in South Mountain Reservation, Eagle Rock Reservation and Hilltop Reservation by 750 in controlled hunts conducted in 2008, 2009 and 2010. DiVincenzo said that the program will continue in 2011.

The Eagle Rock Reservation reforestation program is modeled after a similar initiative at South Mountain Reservation completed in 2009. 

DiVincenzo said that forest reforestation plans as part of a deer management initiative are not happening anywhere else. "Anywhere there is a deer cull, that's it," he said.

Rhodeside & Harwell, a landscape architectural firm in Newark, was awarded a $71,000 professional contract to design the reforestation program and other improvements. Applied Landscaping Technologies from Montville was awarded a competitively bid contract for $655,049 to perform the construction work. The Essex County Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs is managing the project. Funding is being provided through a NJ Green Acres grant received by the Eagle Rock Reservation Conservancy and a grant from the Essex County Recreation and Open Space Trust Fund Advisory Board.

Other improvements in the plan include enhanced landscaping and fencing at the corner of Eagle Rock Avenue and Prospect Avenue, installation of a fence to prevent litter blowing into the reservation along Prospect Avenue and minor drainage repairs along Prospect Avenue. 

For more information about the Eagle Rock Reservation Conservancy, send an e-mail to Jack Millelot, the group's trailmaster. The group hosts monthly meetings that are open to the public the first Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. in the Verona Park boathouse.