Cranbury couple fight biz park's plan to use toxic Arthur Kill fill

[Guest]

CRANBURY — A township couple is speaking out against a plan to build an industrial park on a 396-acre parcel of contaminated land adjacent to their home, arguing that the project could cause even worse environmental problems than currently exist on the property.

Of particular concern to Robert and Barbara Dillon, residents of Hightstown-Cranbury Station Road, are intentions by the builder to import 25,000 truckloads of soil dredged from the Arthur Kill for use as fill material on the construction site.

Noting that the waterway between New Jersey and Staten Island is notoriously polluted, and discounting the builder’s assurances that the dredged material will be completely “cleaned” prior to its use in Cranbury, the Dillons are concerned that runoff from the site could contaminate the drinking water in their home’s well and the Millstone River. They fear contaminants might even leach into the water of a major aquifer located below the township.

http://www.trentonian.com/articles/2010/05/21/news/doc4bf623c030e9b945932641.txt

[Incredible]

There was a related article in the Cranbury Press on Friday. I cannot believe that the township would even discuss such a stupid thing.
It is called "cleanup" - but all Viridian is planning is to cover a portion of the property with toxic waste, and build warehouses on top, and block access to the rest of the property. They would win twice - I assume they will get payed a lot for accepting the toxic waste, and they would not spend a dime for actual cleanup. Their argument is that the site is already polluted, so lets go ahead and make it really bad!
The site is upstream of the Millstone and the Cranbury brook.
The township has so far been planning wisely for the future by preserving farmland. But if this happens, the whole area could be damaged.

What is going on? People get excited about a tatoo shop on main street, but nobody cares about this????????

[Guest]

[Guest]

I say we all gather at this property on Thursday at 1pm to protest. Bring signs and be ready to chant and yell !!!!

If there is enough responses on here I will contact the press to be there and cover it. Maybe we can do a sit in and block the trucks. Who is with me ?????

Let us all save our environment !!!!

[funny1]

Hey, we might as well invite the teacher's union, too.

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The Trolls have attacked again !

[Guest]

Is there an organized effort to fight this?

[Dan Mulligan]

I attended the marathon (5PM - 11:30PM) planning board meeting on this subject last night.

Overall the applicant who wants to develop the property gave rather detailed and extensive testimony about traffic, the dirt dredged from New York harbor which contains benzene and more.

What has come to light is in order to develop this land the applicant will need to bring in many many tons of dirt. This dirt which is actually being dregged right now in NY harbor by the Ambros light will be used to fill in the existing site. They (the applicant) say the dirt will be safe as they will clean it before adding it to the site. The good news is we have local ordnance which prohibits dirt being brought in from outside Cranbury (just for reasons such as this). So in order to move forward the applicant would need a waiver.

Last night when I spoke at the meeting I said we should then consider to not allow this dirt to be brought in to our town as our ordinance as defined says they cannot. Further reason as to why we definitely should not consider this dredged dirt from NY harbor is that it is contaminated and this site has both the Millstone river and Cranbury Brook running though it and if the professionals were wrong about this dirt and it was unsafe these two water ways would be damaged. Because the negative impact of this contaminated dirt would then affect everyone downstream. For instance the Millstone cuts through south Main Street, Old Cranbury road (my road), shadow oaks and then out to the swim club and Cranbury Brook cuts right through the heart of our community.

With that I am concerned we will be looking back on this dirt being brought into the township in 10 or 20 years and we will be saying "Well if we only knew then what we know now".

The next meeting is June 17 for this issue. I highly recommend anyone and everyone attends and voices their concerns about this contaminated dirt being brought into Cranbury Township. Because we do not want to look back years from now as I said above and say "If we only knew then what we know now".

[Guest]

Dan,

Thank you!! This is a huge issue for the town. Many years ago Cranbury was one of the towns cited as a possible land fill site and residents gathered in the gym to hold a protest. Residents must be concerned about this. If Cranbury becomes known for having a toxic site it could not only damage the wild life, but also our property values.

We have no reason to allow the importation. I only hope the PB does not allow this to occur.

[guest411]

It is my understanding that the build out of this site is impossible with a waiver for soil importation. The amount of soil the applicant seeks to import is HUGE, probably one of the largest private site soil importations to occur in recent New Jersey history.

Soil importation volumes aside, the applicant is taking the soil from a known contaminated site. Although this is currently permitted by the NJDEP, look closely at the environmental laws as now written. If the NJDEP changes the standards which dictate what constitutes contaminated soil (which the DEP has done many times in the past 30 years), the NJDEP could declare that all of the imported soil is contaminated and must be removed or remedidated. this could easily mean that Cranbury now has the hugest volume of imported and contaminated soil ever seen in NJ history. where will the applicant be if and when this occurs? Gone, is my guess. Will there be any bond in place to pay for all of this? I highly doubt it. Who will pay to clean up the mess? you and me, through our state tax dollars or local monies.

The simple answer is not to grant any waiver for soil import and then if any soil import is allow, require Certified clean fill from known clean sources.

Recent examples of how soil import has backfired is the Ford Plant in Edison where its "clean" fill was used for a school site in Trenton and the new CVS in West Windsor near McCaffreys. it cost big money to undue the damage caused by those mistakes.

We cannot allow similar mistakes to occur here. Given the site's proximity to the millstone river, the results would be severe and long lasting.

Get educated, read up on the issues, go review the plans and then attend the meeting and allow your voice to be heard. The planning board and this applicant need to heard from every one of of us.

[Guest]

Let us just be clear, this is Obama's fault.

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[Dan Mulligan]