Commission urges against car washes in Millstone
BY JENNIFER KOHLHEPP
Staff Writer

MILLSTONE - The township's Environmental Commission does not encourage the establishment of car washes in town.

An application is now pending before the township's Zoning Board of Adjustment for the creation of a car wash in the township's highway commercial (HC) zone on Route 537 near the intersection of Route 571. However, car washes are currently not a permitted land use in Millstone.

The Township Committee recently looked at introducing an ordinance that would permit car washes as conditional uses in its HC and HC-1 zones. The Environmental Commis-sion reviewed the proposed ordinance and made comments and recommendations.

In a letter to the mayor regarding the proposed ordinance, the commission wrote, "Although not specifically prohibited, car washes and many other undesirable and nonessential enterprises are not part of the variety of businesses usually associated with rural environments. Will Millstone Township continue to do the hard work of maintaining its unique character, or slip and slide toward conventional patterns of overgrowth and overdevelopment?"

The commission said car washes have an overall high water demand, despite recycling, and noted that the township has had problems with water availability when the water table drops due to seasonal demands as well as rain shortfalls.

The commission stated that car washes create point source pollution with surfactants and detergents, waxes, oils, gasoline and unknown substances washed from cars and trucks. Other pollution is created at such businesses with litter and debris collected from patrons both before and after the washing process, according to the commission.

The commission also stated that car washes create noise pollution with machinery that includes pumps, compressors, sprayers, vacuums and blowers. Such businesses also create air pollution with idling vehicles, evaporating cleaning compounds and latent vehicular fluids, according to the commission.

In the letter, the commission wrote that Millstone Township's ordinances enumerate the kind of businesses that are permitted.

"These ordinances were carefully crafted to allow business to flourish, while protecting the rural character of our environmentally concerned community," the letter stated.

The commission said the township's various boards must be "the responsible guardians of the heritage these laws created."

"Applications for variances in contravention of established laws provide for special circumstances," the commission wrote. "To deliberately make ordinance changes [that are] not in the best interest of the community and its inhabitants is clearly counterproductive."