The commission is expected to hear the results of groundwater studies on those two sites at its next meeting in late May. Groundwater conditions will be a key factor in determining whether the sites meet environmental standards for the safe storage of hazardous wastes.
The panel's decision to drop Maurice River Township in Cumberland County
from consideration came at the behest of state environmental officials, who warned yesterday that the area was crucial to efforts to repopulate New Jersey with bald eagles.
POPULATION PLUMMETED
South Jersey was home to 22 pairs of nesting eagles during the 1950s, but the population plummeted during the 1960s as the use of pesticides such as the now-banned DDT proliferated. By the early 1970s, only one nesting pair remained, and it was unable to reproduce.
Since then, state wildlife officials have been trying to increase eagle numbers. Almost 40 young Canadian eagles have been released in South Jersey, and an additional nine have been raised by the one remaining pair after being placed in their nest.
Eagles are thought to return to the area of their birth after several years of wandering. Wildlife experts estimate that South Jersey has enough wild areas left to accommodate nine nesting pairs. Those areas are confined largely to Cumberland and Salem Counties.
Michael Catania, a deputy commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection, told the panel yesterday that the Maurice River site ''is crucial to the survival" of bald eagles in the state.
The state's one active eagle nest is only four miles from the proposed site of the waste storage operation, according to wildlife officials.
'CORE AREA'
