processes, beginning with natural hydrological conditions and including restoration of communities of organisms and their interactions. An increase in the presence of a wildlife species is generally a promising indication that ecological health is returning but is insufficient cause for proclaiming that restoration has occurred.

The HMDC has in the past sanctioned the development of substantial wetland acreage rather than protecting all wetlands. The commission thereby set a precedent of trading wetland development for wetland enhancement, with a resulting net loss of wetland acreage in a quest for increased wetland functional values. There are alternatives to that strategy. The commission might instead gradually begin to invest some of its own not inconsiderable revenues directly in wetland restoration year by year (and solicit federal, state, local, and private funds to augment its contribution), without choosing to sacrifice additional wetland acreage to subsidize wetland improvement.

In the future, too, the commission may wish to consider developing a systematic mitigation or ecological restoration program for the Meadowlands in which individual mitigations are conducted as part of a broader overall restoration strategy.

Axelrod, H. R., C. W. Emmens, D. Sculthorpe, and W. Vorderwinkler. 1962. Exotic Tropical Fishes. T. F. H. Publications, Jersey City, N.J.

Clean Water Act of 1977. P.L. 95-217, Dec. 27, 1977, 99 Stat. 1566.

Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission (HMDC). 1984. Wetland Bio-Zones of the Hackensack Meadowlands: An Inventory. Lyndhurst, N.J. June.

Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission. 1989a. Annual Report. Lyndhurst, N.J.

Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission. 1989b. Fact Sheet. Lyndhurst, N.J. October.

Hackensack Meadowlands District. 1990. Special Area Management Plan. Lyndhurst, N.J.

Hackensack Meadowland Reclamation and Development Act (HMRDA). 1968. State of New Jersey Statutes. Chapter 17, Sections 13:7-1 to 13-17-86.

Kraus, M. L., and D. J. Smith. n.d. Competition and Succession in a Perturbed Urban Estuary: The Effects of Hydrology. Monograph. Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission, Lyndhurst, N.J.

Scardino, A. 1990. Executive Director, Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission. Briefing to Committee on Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems. Lyndhurst, N.J.

TAMS Consultants, Inc. 1990. Comprehensive Baseline Studies: IR-2 Site and Off-Site Mitigation Areas—Evaluation of Harmon Meadow Western Brackish Marsh Mitigation Area. January. New York, N.Y.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 1982. Statement of Findings for Application No. 81-391-J2 by the Hartz Mountain Development Corporation. New York District. Regulatory Branch. December 16.