WANTAGE, N.J. — Officials will lease environmentally sensitive land in northern New Jersey for $7,500 a year so a utility can build a 16-mile underground natural gas pipeline.

The state Environmental Protection Department says Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. must preserve 116 acres, or four times the amount the utility will cut through.

The Highlands region has been preserved from development to help protect the source of most of New Jersey’s drinking water.

The pipeline would run next to an existing 24-inch pipeline from Wantage to Ringwood.

The 24-year lease works out to $180,000, up from the original appraisal of $45,000.

Environmental groups are angry. Jeff Tittel of the New Jersey Sierra Club says “it’s a rip-off.”