A farm on Mine Road in Hopewell Township.

Voters who go to the polls Nov. 3 will have more to ponder than who to elect for governor and local municipal councils — they will have to decide if saving New Jersey land from development is worth deepening the state’s vast amount of debt.

The ballot question, Public Question No. 1, proposes to replenish the state’s Garden State Preservation Trust fund with $400 million worth of funding for open space purchases, and preservation of farmland and historic sites.

A coalition of 135 environmental, agricultural and historic preservation groups called the “Keep it Green Campaign” has formed to support the measure. The campaign includes statewide environmental groups as well as local groups such as the Stony

Brook Millstone Watershed Association, Isles Inc., the Trenton Historical Society and Save Hamilton Open Space.

Kelly Mooij, organizer of the campaign, said the money could purchase as much as 73,000 acres of land, (about half the size of Mercer County) which can be had at a bargain in the down real estate market. She said the measure would cost the average taxpayer about $10 a year.

Although the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club opposed the bill while it was in the legislature because they preferred other funding methods, they currently endorse voting “Yes” to the measure.

Other groups, such as the New Jersey Taxpayers Association, are on the record opposing the question.

Mooij argues the long-term economic benefits of protecting land from development outweigh the cost of the bond issue.

“If we miss this opportunity right now, we will end up losing that land forever or paying much more for it in the future,” Mooij said. “I liken it to borrowing money for investing in the kids’ education, or buying a house. It’s the kind of borrowing you want to do.”

Mooij said preserving land helps most of all when it comes to water quality. Less rain runoff from buildings, roads, driveways and parking lots means less pollution entering streams and groundwater, she said. Mooij said filtering the pollution out later for drinking would be more costly than stopping it from being polluted in the first place.

Michael Pisauro, a Hopewell Township resident and lobbyist for New Jersey Environmental Lobby, said the measure would benefit urban residents as well as rural ones. Although rural areas like Hopewell would see farmland preserved, places like
Trenton and Ewing would have funds to create parkland.

They would also indirectly benefit from land preservation, he said, because of a reduced threat of the Delaware River flooding. Pisauro blamed the 2006 floods of Titusville, West Trenton and the Island section of Trenton on overdevelopment farther upstream.

“With less paving, the rain event has more time to get into the groundwater and you’re decreasing the chance of flooding,” he said.

Residents everywhere would also be able to enjoy parks made possible by open space funds, he said.