Seven years after its enactment, the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act remains a point of contention for pro-environment supporters and property-owning critics.

Not so contentious, however, that four police officers should have needed to spend last Wednesday afternoon and evening at the New Jersey’s Highlands Council’s headquarters and make an arrest.

While most of the 800,000-plus people who live in the Highlands region—860,000 acres that span 88 municipalities in Morris, Sussex, Somerset, Warren, Passaic, Bergen and Hunterdon counties—blissfully exist without concern for the law, there is a core of people on both sides of the issue who are passionate about it.

Interestingly, neither side is completely happy with the way the law—which protects water resources by regulating development in the region—is being implemented, though for vastly different reasons.

On the one side are the environmentalists who fought hard—some for decades—to push the measure through the New Jersey Legislature and, later, to try to make the rules in the regional master plan as strong and protective as possible.

They complain that the Highlands Council still has not done a comprehensive analysis of the region’s water resources. And the 460-plus page regional plan does not outline no-build areas.

They would be happy if the Highlands Council banned all development.

But it didn’t—it couldn’t.

So they had to settle for a fairly strict plan with some compromises.

For instance, some development is allowed in areas that have a water deficit, meaning demand outpaces capacity, but that development has to recharge, or return to the ground, more water than it uses.

On the other side are the land owners. Their arguments have remained the same: The state stripped them of the right to develop their properties, which led to a financial loss, if only on paper. The state promised money to make them whole, but hasn’t come through with it.

That’s true at least to some extent. But the full implementation of the law and the rules coincided with the recession, so it’s tough to say what kind of loss people really have faced. Large subdivision development really can’t happen anymore in the preservation area, which is half of the Highlands, but the economy has stopped most development elsewhere, too.

(By the way, the council is supposed to be monitoring the implementation of the act and should try to sort out what financial harm people have faced to give both sides, as well as the Legislature and general public, a true picture of what the law did.)

And the state hasn’t come up with more than a meager $10 million to seed the bank overseeing the transfer of development rights program, one of the main ways in which land owners could get compensation.

There are also open space and farmland preservation funds available—more was allocated last Wednesday when Gov. Chris Christie signed three open space laws.

Even without an unbiased study, it seems clear there is not enough— nor would there ever be—to compensate every land owner for every acre he can no longer develop. But most people who owned more than an acre or so never intended to build on the rest of their land.

Still, there are a number of people who had plans to build, be they written or just conceptual. And there are at least a couple of farmers whose operations have been hurt by the law.

It was disingenuous of Sen. Bob Smith to tell environmentalists compensation is not an issue.

After three rounds, the Highlands Development Credit Bank has made offers to purchase the development rights of 320 acres for $5.5 million so it still has money, but it has so far concentrated on the hardest hurt and has not yet opened up to everyone. When that happens, in all likelihood, the money will be wiped out fast. And there are currently no areas to take Highlands development credits, but that’s fodder for another column.

Legislators said they would provide money to compensate land owners. All sides support a water tax as a fair and inexpensive source of funding, but the Democrats in power have refused to consider it and it’s safe to say Christie wouldn’t support it either.

It’s nice that the sides agree on the tax. Surprisingly, two of those on opposite sides of the issue, who have exchanged harsh words on the editorial pages of newspapers, agree on something else: Both were appalled at the arrest during the most recent Highlands Council meeting of a land owner by Chester Township police.

There was no need for four Chester Township policemen to guard first some 20 environmentalists who stood well away from the entrance to the council’s building with hand-written signs for a small rally in the rain before the meeting. Even Assemblyman John McKeon joked about the police presence. It was unnecessary for the officers to station themselves at back of the meeting.

And, yes, greenies and farmers alike agreed the police did not need to physically haul Hal Danielson out of the meeting. Yes, Danielson was angry and he was yelling and that is inappropriate, but he is a senior citizen who stayed seated the entire time and did not seem to pose any real threat.

Highlands Council meetings are often long and at times peppered by raised voices and hot tempers, but the disputes among the players have never gotten violent and it’s hard to imagine they would. It’s actually refreshing to see people who care about an issue turn out to participate and try to influence the system. That’s what democracy is all about.

Colleen O'Dea is a writer, editor, researcher, data analyst, web page designer and mapper with almost three decades in the news business.

The column above reflects O'Dea's personal opinion and analysis. O'Dea has also covered the Highlands Act and Highlands Council as a news reporter for Patch.