The cleanup of arsenic has been completed and Township Administrator Tom Witt said Thursday that a $2,000 fee is all that is holding up the field’s construction.
By: Lacey Korevec
The township is close to starting work on a new Babe Ruth baseball field.
The cleanup of arsenic on the property has been completed and Township Administrator Tom Witt said Thursday that a $2,000 fee is all that is holding up the field’s construction.
He said the fee to be paid to the state Department of Environmental Protection will cover the cost to review the site’s remediation and must be paid before a "no further action letter" is issued. The letter is needed before construction can begin.
"We will be sending the check to the state on the 27th (of March)," he said, adding that the process was delayed because the invoice was originally sent to the wrong address. "I would expect within the next week or two we would receive the no further action notice. To the best of my knowledge, everything is fine and they approved our remediation plan."
Once the township has the no further action notice in hand, it can solicit bids to have the field constructed on 12 acres of the Wright South property, which lies adjacent to the school.
"We’re expecting to start the construction as soon as possible," Mr. Witt said. "That’s all I can really tell you. We’ll really be working on it once we get the NFA."
Brown and Keener Urban Design, of Philadelphia, developed plans for a 90-foot regulation size field, including dugouts, fencing a scoreboard and bleachers, in 2005 for $30,000. The Township Committee approved a $200,000 bond ordinance to pay for the field’s construction in January 2006.
The township hired EnviroCraft, of Bellmawr, to clean up the soil on the property, which was found in 2002 to have levels of arsenic that exceeded the maximum allowed concentration of 20 parts per million. Samples taken showed that the soil had 20.5 parts per million to 30.8 parts per million, as a result of the land’s previous agricultural use.
The cleanup, which reduced arsenic concentration by blending soils, began in November 2005, and was completed in May 2006.
Once bids are solicited and construction begins, it will still be a year before ballplayers can set foot on the field, Committeewoman Pari Stave said.
"If we start it this spring, the seed has to be established for a year before it can be played on," she said. "The spring of ’08 would be the first it could be used."
Ms. Stave said that the ball field is not the only project the township has been working on at the Wright South property. She said the township is planning to add a village green and is still deciding whether to include a jogging trial around the site.
"There’s something for everyone in this plan," she said.
But the process still can’t get under way without the official OK from the state, Ms. Stave said.
"We can’t go ahead with doing any of the groundwork, the grading, until we have that no further action letter," she said. "So, we’re waiting for that."

