ABSTRACT
The first essential ingredient of our ecologically based municipal master plan (MMP) is a community-wide property parcel map. The perfect repository for historical data is within the pages of the modernized, ecologically based MMP. The local municipality that keeps an up-to-date inventory of its ecological infrastructure and its associated components, specifically for planning purposes, is more rare than common, although many municipalities can be credited with at least having made an initial inventory of community resources at one time or another. Some interesting and relatively recent discoveries in New Jersey concerning soils at residential construction sites have further dramatized the importance of soil resource considerations in both land use and environmental protection. Anecdotal information and perhaps old photographs can be obtained from older residents who may have stayed long enough to witness firsthand the decline in environmental quality.
