Vegetation
Vegetation is a critical factor for maintaining the City's water supply system in the Pequannock. The trees and other cover retard runoff and assist in filtering water. They also provide habitat for the abundant wildlife found on the site and are a major factor in its scenic beauty. One has only to travel through the Watershed during the fall to appreciate the latter.
The most prominent type of vegetation in the Watershed is hardwood, primarily red oaks, trees, which have spouted from the stumps of older trees, cut down many years ago. Unlike most forest trees in the region, these tend to be all of the same age. They are members of the Oak Chestnut Association although there are no more chestnut trees due to the chestnut blight. Some of the stands of trees have as many as thirty different species in the same grove. Because trees in any given stand in the Watershed are all of the same age, there is very little under story, or low plants, within the forest except for spring flowers, which take advantage of the sun available before the trees are in full leaf.
There are extensive stands of hemlock in the north-central portion of the Watershed which number among the largest and finest in New Jersey. These magnificent trees, which require areas of high humidity and cool temperatures, normally operate to prevent any other vegetation form growing within their groves. However, the hemlock trees that began to take hold when the hardwood forest was cut down could not prevent the stumps from sprouting. The results are several stands of hemlock and hardwood trees mixed, an extremely unusual association.
Beautiful as they are, the hemlock groves also perform a vital role in the Watershed in providing a winter habitat for all forms of wildlife. There are, as well, limited stands of rhododendron associated with the hemlock trees and mountain laurel distributed throughout the red oak stands, which provide excellent cover for wildlife.
Several pure stands of sugar maple, remnants of past-cultivated fields, are found on the site with great high canopies and a flurry of spring flowers. In the fall their beauty is incomparable.
A number of areas have been planted within the last fifty years with softwood trees to hold runoff, prevent erosion and thereby improve the quality if water in the Watershed.These are introduced species consisting mainly of pine, larch and spruce. The red pine and larch trees have not succeeded very well although white pines and spruce trees have. North of Cedar Pond there is a rare stand of southern white cedar trees, believed to be the northernmost occurrence of this plant. They grow in a wetland associated with the Uttertown Bog and contribute an unusually high amount of dissolved nutrients to it. These nutrients in turn encourage the growth of many varieties of low plants peculiar to a bog supports many species of animals and provides a wintering place for deer. It has the sensitive ecology within the Watershed and so access to the bog must be strictly limited.
Unfortunately, developers have not viewed vegetation as an asset to be preserved during the period of construction. Rather, vast areas are often cleared for housing. It is somewhat paradoxical that the new homeowner spends a considerable amount of time and money replacing vegetation that could, and should have been spared.
Vegetation in the Pequannock Watershed was carefully evaluated for its ability to absorb various densities of development. Forest cover that was determined to be critical for maintenance of the water supply system, unique to the area, or which provides major wildlife habitat has been conserved from future development controls and standards will protect existing vegetation in areas scheduled for use.