Highlands air quality assessment technical report

The New Jersey Highlands are part of the great sweep of the Appalachians that shadows the East Coast from Maine to Georgia. The region contains nearly 860,000 acres of forested ridges, rolling farmlands, diverse recreation, abundant wildlife and historic treasures. New Jersey’s Highlands stretch about 60 miles, from Phillipsburg in the southwest to Oakland in the northeast. They lie within portions of seven northwest New Jersey counties — Bergen, Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, and Warren — and include more than 88 municipalities within the legislated region. The NJ Highlands provides more than half of New Jersey's population, 5.4 million people, with clean drinking water. A large sector of the State's industrial base also relies on abundant clean water from the Highlands. Click here for a map of the 244 municipalities in 16 counties that depend upon the Highlands for all or some of its water supply. This report provides an overview of air quality in New Jersey and the Highlands Region as well as an evaluation of air contaminant emissions, air quality trends, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions and health and environmental impacts of air contaminants in the Highlands Region. The report further provides federal and state control strategies and recommendations to improve air quality in the Highlands Region