KNOWLTON -- The cliffs make the Delaware Water Gap a natural wonder. The cliffs are at the top of a state list of highway safety hazards. Now state plans to reduce those hazards have local officials wondering.

KNOWLTON -- The cliffs make the Delaware Water Gap a natural wonder. The cliffs are at the top of a state list of highway safety hazards.

Now state plans to reduce those hazards have local officials wondering.

"It's a senseless project," proclaimed Knowlton Mayor Adele Starrs, as a follow-up to a Township Committee resolution unanimously approved late last month, which disapproves of the state's plans.

"We don't want a 60-foot pyramid there," she said. "It's going to be huge."

"Safety is the top priority for the New Jersey Department of Transportation," wrote DOT spokesman Stephen Schapiro. "This approximately half-mile stretch of I-80 is the most dangerous portion of an NJDOT maintained highway in terms of rockfall, based on the stability of the rock, the frequency of rock falls or mudslides, and the severity."

He called the rocks, severe cliffs and steep slopes "a real danger that is constant and severe," and said state highway crews "regularly clear rocks from the roadway that are typically between 12 inches to 36 inches in dimension."

Starrs said the type of structure being proposed begins with the pyramid at about milepost 1.5 on the westbound side and continues with a "Jurassic-Park-style fence" until about milepost 1.

Costs for the project are estimated to be between $52 million to $58 million.

The DOT held a public meeting last year on the project but town officials said they feel their voices, and those of the towns' residents, are not being heard.

Starrs said she is meeting this week with Hardwick officials and local citizens are beginning a petition drive to get the state's attention.

Hardwick officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

The project area is a part of route 80 what is squeezed between a rock (the cliffs of Kittatinny Ridge) and a wet place (Delaware River).

In fact, parts of the eastbound interstate is cantilevered away from the cliffs. and the westbound lanes sit at the base of 200-foot cliffs.

The Water Gap is also a nationally acclaimed natural wonder shared by the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The area of work traverses the townships of Knowlton and Hardwick and the state-owned Worthington State Forest and the National Park Service's Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, one of the top 15 most-visited national park sites.

In a letter to Starrs, which he shared with the New Jersey Herald, John Donahue, retired superintendent of the recreation area, said he finds the state project "a solution in search of a problem. They (state DOT) never provided any data of actual incidents to the NPS and their efforts at consultation with the tribes and SHPO have been misguided at best."

The "tribes" are the recognized Native American peoples whose ancestors traveled the Delaware River, making it their summer homes to fish, hunt and raise limited crops. SHPO is the State Historic Preservation Office.

In a formal statement, the current National Park Service said, "NJDOT initially approached the NPS at Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in 2011 regarding this project. Since that time, the park has participated in several meetings as information has been provided by NJDOT on their design plans. "The park has shared our resource concerns formally by letter and in meetings from the beginning of the process and we continue to provide input as plans develop and are shared with us."

The NPS statement said concerns include "potential impacts to scenic and geologic resources, wildlife and plants."

Through Shapiro, the state said there have been several accidents, lane closures and detours required over the years "because of mudslides or falling rocks on the roadway, including one fatality when a 7-ton boulder crashed onto the roadway, broke through the concrete median and landed in the path of the moving vehicle."

No other details of the fatality were provided.

A September 2011 "concept development report" on the project referenced the incident as "happening five or six years ago," near milepost 1, but gave no other details.

In his letter to Starrs, Donahue said he was superintendent from 2003 until last December and, "I would have heard about rockfall incidents in the park and I never received one report or complaint.'

He ended his note with the comment, "You are more likely to be hit by a bear on that section of road."

Interstate 80 was built in stages beginning in the 1960s and was completed in 1973.

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Bruce A. Scruton can also be contacted on Twitter: @brucescrutonNJH or by phone: 973-383-1224

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