School site cleanup plan met with protest in U.F.
Complete removal of contamination could cost $2M-$3M
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

William Miscoski

UPPER FREEHOLD - Deputy Mayor William Miscoski vowed that he would either be arrested or buried in the middle school parking lot by a bulldozer if the school district made any attempt to keep contaminated soils at the site of the new school.

Miscoski - who said he was speaking as a resident, not as a township official - made these statements at the May 23 Planning Board meeting. He added that he would lead the biggest protest the town has ever seen if the Board of Education went ahead with its plans to cap rather than remove contaminated soil at the Ellisdale Road site.

The township's Board of Health voted 6-1 at its May 9 meeting to allow certain work on the property to begin while the Upper Freehold Regional School District deals with the contaminated soil found at the site. The soil is contaminated with arsenic and dieldrin.

According to Freehold Area Board of Health officer Margaret Jahn, the dieldrin levels at the site measure 12 times the amount permitted by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

The arsenic levels measure about two times the level accepted by the DEP, which considers the arsenic found at the site to be naturally occurring, according to Jahn.

The school district plans to move the contaminated soil from one part of the property and cap it under 2 feet of the site's fill under the proposed driveway and parking lot areas of the new school, according to Jahn. She said the property will have deed restrictions so the contamination would not be dug up in the future.

At the May 23 Planning Board meeting, Board of Education land-use attorney Phillip Shore said the Board of Education was coming before the township body as a courtesy, and that the Planning Board does not have jurisdiction over the matter.

Board of Education Engineer Paul Pogorzelski told the Planning Board that the school will sit in the middle of the 46-acre tract and have a horseshoe-shaped driveway. Parking would be banked at the rear of the building, he said.

Pogorzelski said a plan is being devised to cap contaminated soil in three locations: under the front driveway, under the side driveway and under the proposed bank area. He said an on-site wastewater disposal bed would be placed in the vicinity of an existing farmhouse.

Planning Board Chairman Richard Stern said that he thought capping the soil under the parking lot is "a poor way" to deal with the contamination, and that the contaminated soil should be removed from the site.

"Wouldn't it be more realistic to have a better site?" he asked.

Shore said the Board of Education has voted for capping the contamination, but that he would take the suggestion to remove the soil back to the board.

Shore said the school district has 44,024 cubic yards of soil to cap.

The Board of Education's environmental consultant, Barbara Maginn, said in April that the board considered taking the contaminated soil off-site, but that it opted for capping based on cost, logistics and the fact that Crosswicks Farms still owns the property.

Maginn said it would cost two to three times more to remove the soil from the site. She estimated that it would cost $2 million to $3 million to take it off-site.

Maginn said trucking 44,024 cubic yards of soil off-site would mean that between 2,200 and 3,000 truckloads of soil would have to leave the site. She said the trucks would travel through town to get on to Route I-195.

Maginn said the Board of Education would also have to find a company to take the contaminated soils. She said the board would have to be sure that the company is fully licensed and would "not go belly-up" for liability reasons.

Maginn said the school district performed pesticide tests and took one soil sample for every 5 acres. She said four of the eight samples exceeded acceptable limits of dieldrin and arsenic.

After the initial testing, the district

had 200 more soil samples taken and found three areas of concern on the property.

There are sections of concern in the front, middle and rear of the site, she said.

Maginn said the dieldrin was found in the upper 6-12 inches of soil, while the arsenic was found in deeper soils.

The plan, according to Maginn, is to bury the contaminated soil at least 2 feet deep and place at least 9 inches of pavement above it.

Pogorzelski said the school district will need to have topsoil brought onto the site, as there is not much of it on the property.

As for changing the location of the new school, the engineer said that the entire town falls under Planning Area 4 for the Office of Smart Growth, which does not permit sewer service. The Ellisdale Road site is immediately adjacent to the sewer plant that services the Fours Seasons and Heritage Green developments, and is as close to the existing school campus as is possible.

Board member Barry Wright said that if he had a middle school-aged child, he would not send that child to school if the school district caps the contamination at the school site.

Mayor Stephen Fleischacker brought up a similar situation occurring at the Martin Luther King/Jefferson School in Trenton, in which residents' outcries led to the reversal of a DEP decision to allow contamination to remain on the site.

Maginn said the reversal of the decision was not scientifically based, but that it was a popular one.

Fleischacker also said contaminated soil found at Winchester Estates, a housing development near the school site, was removed and placed on adjacent preserved farmland. But according to Shore, the DEP case manager would not give the board such an option.

Fleischacker said he believes residents in the community will express strong opinions on this issue.

"If it means more money, it means more money," Fleischacker said. "We're in this project and can't turn back."

Board member Bob Freiberger said children get cancer every year, and that if a child in the school system gets cancer - even if it is unrelated to the contamination - the Board of Education could be hit with a lawsuit that would make removal of the soil look cheap in comparison.

Miscoski later said that he served in Vietnam and was exposed to Agent Orange, which he had been told by the government would not hurt him.

"I've been suffering for 35 years," Miscoski said. "They're our kids, our future."