NJ charges itself with damaging land it was bound to protect

By WAYNE PARRY
Associated Press

New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection has issued a violation notice against itself for wrongly clearing nearly 15 acres of a wildlife management area. The work in February and March was designed to create habitat for the American woodcock. But it destroyed habitat for the barred owl, a threatened species, and the red-shouldered hawk, an endangered species. A division of the department has 30 days to decided how to restore the site in Clayton, a town in the southwestern part of the state. The violation notice includes the threat of penalties. How that would work when the state is both the accuser and the accused was not immediately clear.