Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge

The Great Swamp is the remnant of the bottom of the once-mighty Glacial Lake Passaic that approximately 15,000 to 11,000 years ago stretched across 30 by 10 miles (48 by 16 km) in what is presently northern New Jersey. The lake was formed by the melting waters of the retreating Wisconsin Glacier at the end of the last ice age. The glacier had pushed a moraine ahead of its advance, a rubble of soil and rocks that plugged the existing outlet for the waters that drained into the area of the watershed. As the retreating glacier melted, the waters rose to create the lake before a new outlet began to allow the water to exit at a much higher elevation.[2]

Hydrographic image of a typical drainage basin, called a watershed in the United States

The plug altered the course of the Passaic River, which had drained a swamp that predated the lake. A range of mountains to the west of Morristown formed the western boundary of the new lake and the most easterly line of the Watchung Mountains became the eastern boundary. The tops of some of the Watchung range became islands in the great lake. Water that had vented through the Watchung range, or to its south, found a new path that altered the old drainage paths. When the plug collapsed, the river still was forced to travel north through the range before finding a new outlet near present-day Paterson where it could manage the eastern turn toward the sea.

Some ten thousand years ago, Amerindians arrived in the area and established settlements shortly after the retreat of the glacier, hunting, fishing, and farming. In 1614, Dutch colonists claimed part of the area as New Netherlands and they traded with the natives. Later, British settlers came, establishing dominion over what they called the Province of New Jersey.

The refuge includes about one-quarter of the Great Swamp 55-square-mile (140 km²) watershed that gives rise to the Passaic River. The watershed touches ten modern communities, many of which were settled by European colonists long before the American Revolution.

Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, December

The land that would become the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge was established by an Act of Congress on November 3, 1960, after a multi-year legal battle that pitted local residents against Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officials wishing to turn the Great Swamp into a major regional airport to supplement Newark Airport's ability to accommodate large jet aircraft.[4]

The Jersey Jetport Site Association was the first to form in opposition. Their efforts to prevent the development of an airport in the swamp became public knowledge on December 3, 1959, when four of its members (Kafi Benz, Joan Kelly, Esty Weiss, and Betty White) were expelled from a meeting at the Essex House in Newark that had been organized to generate support for its construction.[5] The JJSA activity was followed closely by an influential sister organization when (because of connections with Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Sr., a major donor to and participant in JJSA) the North American Wildlife Foundation established its specially designated, Great Swamp Committee, in 1960.[6] Between the two organizations and, in less than a year, enough property in the core of the swamp was quickly purchased, assembled, and donated to the federal government to qualify for perpetual protection as a National Wildlife Refuge.[7] As the representative from Arizona, Stewart Udall immediately championed the efforts of these residents, whom he described as having mounted the greatest effort ever made by residents in America to protect a natural habitat, and later, on May 29, 1964, as the Secretary of the Interior, he oversaw its dedication as a refuge. The initial donation was 2,600 acres (11 km²), which assured its protection as a refuge and the acquisition of additional lands continued. In 1960, Representative Peter Frelinghuysen, Jr., whose estate was in the area targeted for development also joined the effort.[8][9][10]