Board revises cleanup plan for new middle school site
Headway made in getting wastewater treatment for facility
BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

ALLENTOWN - There may be a light at the end of the tunnel for the proposed middle school to go on Ellisdale Road.

At the Oct. 4 Upper Freehold Regional Board of Education meeting, board President Joseph Stampe provided an update on recent developments regarding the school.

Construction of the school was supposed to start this past spring for a planned opening in September 2007. However, various issues - including remediating contaminated soil at the site and getting a wastewater management plant for the school - have stalled the project.

Stampe said that on Oct. 3 he met with the mayors of Allentown and Upper Freehold, Board of Education members Lisa Herzer and Bill Borkowski, interim Superintendent of Schools Robert Smith, Business Administrator Viola Yosifon and Allentown Councilwoman Margaret Armenante. He provided everyone with information about the new Remedial Action Work Plan (RAWP), which the Board of Education voted to have its environmental professionals prepare last week.

The previous work plan met with a great amount of public criticism, including that of the two mayors. The board developed the initial RAWP because areas of the Ellisdale Road site are contaminated with arsenic and the historic pesticide dieldrin.

The original RAWP stated that the excavated contaminated soils would be placed into two excavated areas at the school site. The contamination would have been capped in those two areas by 2 feet of clean soil and then sealed with blacktop and concrete under the school's parking lot. The area where the contamination would have remained would have been deed-restricted.

The new RAWP states that the contaminated soil will be blended with clean fill. Any contaminated "hot spots" will be completely removed from the property, according to Stampe. There will be no capping and no deed restriction, he said.

Stampe said the new plan is less expensive than the previous one and that the company that does the cleanup will guarantee its work. He said the exact cost of the project will not be available until it goes out to bid.

Upper Freehold resident Marc Covitz said that board members had expressed concerns at prior meetings about the liability of trucking out contaminated soils. He asked them what changed their minds.

Stampe said that under the new plan, soil would only be removed if it could not be blended to a residential grade. He estimated that less than 10 percent of the contaminated soil may need to be removed.

According to Stampe, the company expected to do the work will have a removal plan for taking contaminated soil to a qualified facility.

Stampe said the board will submit its new RAWP to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and, if accepted, will go out to bid.

Upper Freehold Mayor Stephen Fleischacker said the new remediation strategy is consistent with his recommendations to the board. He said he will advise the Upper Freehold Township Committee and the township's Planning Board

accordingly.

At the Oct. 5 Upper Freehold Township Committee meeting, Fleischacker said the DEP has sent notice that it has reviewed the Wastewater Management Plan application and there are only two minor issues that need addressing.

Allentown Mayor Stuart Fierstein said it is only when the board receives the bid specs that it will truly know the cost of the new plan.

Stampe said the board will give updates to the governing bodies of both towns in the near future.

Yosifon said advertisements for a construction manager for the project would go out this week, and that the board hopes to interview candidates for the job by the first week in November.

Borkowski said the Board of Education may also have an alternative path to take to get wastewater management plan acceptance for the Ellisdale Road site without having to change the planning area of the school.

The school lies in a Planning Area 4, which is a rural planning area, according to the State Development and Redevelopment Plan (SDRP).

Borkowski said he could not yet provide additional details about the alternative plan.

In an interview last month, Eileen Swan, executive director of the state Office of Smart Growth (OSG), said the board did not need a Planning Area change in order to move forward with the school's construction.

"We have schools throughout the state in all planning areas," she said.

The question concerns the sewer service area, which falls under DEP regulations, she said. According to Swan, a school built with a septic system is not a problem.

Neighboring Millstone passed a referendum for a new middle school in 2004, the same year that the Upper Freehold Regional School District did. The construction of that school, also in a Planning Area 4, is well under way, and the facility should open next year.

When asked how the school managed to stay on schedule, Millstone Township School District's Business Administrator Brian Boyle said his district went through the Bureau of Water Quality to get the septic system permit requirements.

"Basically, we followed the rules stipulated by a Discharge to Ground Water NJPDES [New Jersey Pollution Discharge Elimination System] permit," he said.

The Thomas Group, the Millstone Township School District's architect based in Princeton, set up a preliminary meeting with the DEP to go over its project and review the steps required, he said.

Boyle said, "It was determined from the meeting that the project must be reviewed for consistency with the Statewide Water Quality Management Planning rules."

Boyle said the DEP determined that the Millstone school project was initially inconsistent with the Monmouth County Water Quality Management Plan.

"Therefore, we pursued the amendment process to permit the new septic system," he said.

During the amendment process, an NJPDES application is submitted to the DEP for review and approval. Once both the amendment and the NJPDES application are approved, the project is required to submit a Treatment Works Approval (TWA) permit application, according to Boyle.

"The TWA application is the 'technical' review of the proposed system," he said.