Soil samples clean, land cost set, Breza ready to go Voters to decide on $13.2M referendum on April 17 BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP Staff Writer The Upper Freehold Regional School District has good news and more good news. According to Board of Education President Joseph Stampe, the board has not only received information that soil at the proposed middle school site on Breza Road has tested below the state's residential standards for contamination, but it has also signed a nonbinding agreement with the property owner for a purchase price of $5.1 million. In a phone interview on Tuesday morning, Stampe said the $5.1 million price for the 118-acre property off Route 524 is "well within" the budget of the proposed $13.2 million referendum, which Upper Freehold and Allentown residents will vote on during the April 17 Board of Education election. The board has proposed the referendum because the school district is currently $10.7 million overbudget with the middle school project voters approved in 2004 without having even put a shovel in the ground. The project, which was originally slated for a site on Ellisdale Road, has wastewater and contamination issues. The site previously selected is not located in a sewer service area and the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has stated that it cannot guarantee it would approve the necessary Wastewater Management Plan amendment for the site. The Ellisdale Road site is also contaminated with dieldrin and naturally occurring arsenic. According to Stampe, the cost for the purchase of the Breza Road property amounts to $43,257 per acre, which is about $10,000 less per acre than the cost of the acreage at the Ellisdale Road site at $54,000 per acre. The school district has budgeted in the referendum to purchase extra acreage at the Breza Road site to use for a future primary or elementary school. The new referendum also budgets for contingencies with the Breza Road site, which is required by law, according to Stampe. However, he said the board added a second contingency line for the cost of the land since it voted to go to referendum prior to knowing what that cost would be. Stampe explained that both contingency lines amounted to $5.9 million. Since the cost of the land is expected to total $5.1 million, the school district would have $800,000 remaining to cover any additional inflation in costs, Stampe said. If the money is left over at the end of the project, he said, it would be returned to the taxpayers. When asked if he thinks the cost of the land is good considering the wetlands on the Breza Road property, Stampe said, "I definitely do." He said there are 15.5 acres of wetlands that the school district would not be able to build on but could possibly use for athletic fields and/or other uses. Stampe said the $600,000 the school district would wind up paying for that acreage would most likely be less than the remediation costs for cleaning up the contamination at the Ellisdale Road site. With regard to the soil sampling at the Breza Road site, Stampe said the school district contracted with Ecol Sciences Inc., a northern New Jersey-based environmental consulting firm, to conduct the soil testing at the Breza Road site. Stampe said the firm took 28 samples at the site and according to Ken Paul, the executive vice president of Ecol Sciences, all of the samples analyzed "showed all samples below the DEP's most stringent standards" for residential areas. The firm tested for the entire spectrum of historic pesticides at the site and for other substances such as lead and arsenic. If voters approve the referendum, the school district would work with Ecol Sciences to file the necessary paperwork with the DEP for a no-further-action (NFA) letter, which would allow it to move forward with construction at the Breza Road site, according to Stampe. With the soil sample results and land cost in hand, Stampe, whom the board voted as a spokesperson for the new referendum, said, "Clearly I think it is going to expedite the construction of the school. I also think it is fiscally responsible for us to move in this direction." Although the board has been quoting a price of about $1 million for cleaning up the Ellisdale Road site, according to Stampe, until further review of the actual contamination there it could cost more. He also said that the new site has room for future expansion of the school district and is located in a sewer service area. He said the school district has filed an application with the DEP for the Wastewater Management Plan revision necessary for the Breza Road site and expects a response on May 2. "We're anticipating getting that approved quickly because it's just a review process that does not require public comment," he said. The Wastewater Management Plan amendment for the Ellisdale Road site does require public comment. "Ironically, the other application for the Ellisdale Road site is not going on the register until May 7," Stampe said. "We will have an approved Wastewater Management Plan revision for the Breza Road site before we even start the process with the other site." Even if the school district were to move forward with a school on the Ellisdale Road site, it would still have to go to another referendum for the funds it would need to finish the project there. The school district would need confirmation from the DEP of the Wastewater Management Plan amendment before it could go to another referendum.