BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer
The Manalapan Township engineer has acknowledged there is total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) soil contamination in the immediate vicinity of the Dreyer house that was purchased by Manalapan in 2005 to settle a lawsuit brought by the Dreyer family against Manalapan.
The property is now expected to be used in an expansion of the Manalapan Recreation Center, Route 522.
The Dreyer house is at 93 Freehold Road (Route 522). A portion of the recreation center lies behind the property.
Municipal officials said they believe the contamination will be cleaned up without adversely affecting the planned recreation center expansion.
The contamination resulted from leakage of an underground oil storage tank at the Dreyer house that had rusted and leaked heating oil into the ground.
Township Engineer Greg Valesi said an investigation indicated there had been no groundwater contamination.
The issue of the contamination was raised at the Township Committee’s May 9 meeting by former Committeeman Drew Shapiro, who is running for election in November.
Shapiro said he was inquiring about the matter because officials were getting ready to bond for $4,190,000 and to spend a total of $4,400,000 in order to prepare the Herbert-Dreyer tract for the recreation expansion.
The Herbert parcel at 95 Freehold Road is next door to the Dreyer house and was also purchased by Manalapan in 2005. A portion of the recreation center is behind the Herbert property.
The purchase of the Herbert parcel cost Manalapan $432,000 and the Dreyer property cost $465,500. The township closed on the sale of both properties on May 27, 2005.
In his comments at the May 9 meeting, Shapiro said he knew Valesi had been working on a report detailing heating oil contamination that had been discovered in the immediate vicinity of the Dreyer house.
Helping to defray Manalapan’s costs to buy the houses was the promise of $250,000 from the Monmouth County Municipal Open Space Grant Program and an additional $270,000 from the state Green Acres program.
In order to qualify for the Green Acres money there were certain site preparations that had been made that disclosed there was TPH contamination immediately surrounding the Dreyer home due to heating oil leaking from an underground storage tank that had rusted, leaked and was subsequently not properly cleaned and disposed of.
Regarding the feasibility of officials moving forward with bonding for the development of the property, Shapiro said, “I’m assuming before beginning the Phase One development, what’s going to happen with that property is going to come into play. Is [the TPH contamination] going to affect the plan (to expand the recreation complex) and what’s going on with that?”
Acknowledging that the issue is likely to become a matter of litigation, Township Attorney Caroline Casagrande allowed Valesi to answer Shapiro’s questions. She said, “We’re certainly not going to discuss pending litigation, however, Mr. Valesi can speak to any remediation process going on.”
According to Valesi, although the level of TPH contamination exceeded “acceptable Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) standards,” his firm’s investigation revealed the contamination to be “localized.” He said he does not believe it will affect the proposed recreation center expansion plans which include the construction of a synthetic turf field, additional playing fields and a tot lot.
Speaking at the May 9 meeting, Valesi said he had submitted a remediation proposal for the site to the DEP and was awaiting the agency’s approval of those cleanup plans.
He said he was expecting the DEP to approve his recommendations and that the township could then expect to have to remove the contaminated soil and dispose of it at an approved site and then bring in clean fill material.
Valesi said he believed that at the end of the process Manalapan would receive a No Further Action letter from the DEP and that the township’s plans to develop the property would likely proceed without further problems.
On May 11, the News Transcript contacted the DEP. Agency spokesman Larry Hajna faxed the newspaper a letter he said the DEP was preparing to send to Township Administrator Tara Lovrich to inform her that the remediation plan submitted by Valesi “is in compliance with the technical requirements for site remediation” according to the parameters established by state statute. He said it is expected that Manalapan will submit a final remedial action report by July 1.
The letter that was faxed to the newspaper was undated and unsigned, but stated that the DEP had completed a review of the remedial action work plan received on May 3. The letter carries the name of Kirstin Pointin-Hahn, acting chief of the DEP’s Bureau of Southern Field Operations.
Hajna said the letter had been entered into the DEP system on or about May 10 and would be mailed to Manalapan this week once the case manager returns to work. He said that person was out of the office at the end of last week and was unable to personally sign the letter so it could be mailed.