By karl vilacoba
Staff Writer
BRICK — Residents will soon be invited to take advantage of some dirty deeds, done dirt cheap.
In an effort to save taxpayer dollars, the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority discussed plans at its Oct. 28 meeting to offer large amounts of free topsoil to any takers from the public.
An estimate of the amount of topsoil remaining in the northwest area of the ongoing pumped water storage reservoir project on Herbertsville and Sally Ike roads led the authority to pass a resolution awarding a bid for further removal. All told, officials are counting on no more than 100,000 cubic yards of soil to be removed by Muccio Inc., of Farmingdale.
But with removal costs charged at $1.62 per cubic yard, authority officials said the public can save the township some of that money by taking topsoil off their hands. A total of six bids ranging from $165,500 to $1.6 million were received by the authority to do the topsoil-removal work, according to the resolution.
The topsoil was previously made available to public agencies, local towns and highway authorities. The supply could be valuable to towns for public works projects such as renovating baseball and soccer fields, authority Executive Director Kevin Donald said.
About 10,000 cubic yards of soil have been removed by such public entities so far, Donald said. Each conducted the removal with their own loaders and machinery, he added.
The reservoir project sits on an approximately 120-acre tract that was once used as a sand quarry, according to authority Reservoir Supervisor David Harpell.
An area of the quarry was later filled in with soil dredged from the bottom of a freshwater lake by a property owner who considered building on the land, according to Donald. The soil being removed is "high-end organic" quality, not sand, he said.
The authority made no definite decision on how to inform the public about the giveaway, but is exploring the options of doing public advertising and reaching out to media outlets. However, Donald told the authority it was important to award the topsoil removal bid right away so work could begin while other details were worked out.
The method of distributing the topsoil was also not decided at the meeting. Fearing liability issues and the possibility of situations like cars getting caught in the area of the massive hole, the authority discussed a few safer alternatives of making the soil available to ordinary residents.
Authority Assistant Treasurer Patrick Bottazzi suggested the possibility of leaving a pile of topsoil in a public place for citizens to pick up with shovels and receptacles. Vice Chairman Andrew Nittoso said public works employees could play a role in the distribution.