Additional survey work began Tuesday
By: Bill Greenwood
MONROE Additional survey work on the proposed site of a new high school in Thompson Park is expected to be complete in three weeks, according to Ilene Grossman-Bailey, a senior archaeologist with Richard Grubb and Associates, of Cranbury.
Grubb and Associates began the extra work Tuesday to determine whether the 18th-century Bethel Mission is located on the 35-acre parcel, Ms. Grossman-Bailey said. The company will be digging shovel test pits, which are 1 foot in diameter, and 5-foot-by-5-foot excavation units at four areas on the parcel where the company’s original survey uncovered 18th-century artifacts. However, the company concluded that the artifacts did not indicate that the mission was there.
Ms. Grossman-Bailey said the company’s strategy for the new work has been approved by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The company’s original survey results, released in June, concluded that the mission is located 2,500 feet north of the site. However, the DEP said last week that more work is needed.
DEP Administrator Dorothy Guzzo said in a letter to Assistant Township Attorney Peg Schaffer that the company’s original results presented "extensive, but not entirely convincing" evidence that the mission, a Leni Lenape community converted to Christianity by Presbyterian minister David Brainerd, was not located on the site.
The letter also states that the mission may not have been as far north as Grubb and Associates’ report suggests, and that parts of the mission may have been located on the site.
The survey work is part of a conditional approval issued January 2006 by the State House Commission for a land swap between Monroe and Middlesex County. The DEP is expected to grant final approval for the swap if the survey shows that the mission was not located on the Thompson Park parcel, which is protected by state Green Acres restrictions.
Monroe wants to trade 175 acres of open land with the county for the parcel. The township then would transfer the parcel to the Board of Education, which would build the proposed 365,000-square-foot high school there. Voters approved an $82.9 million referendum for the project in December 2003.
However, the board needs to ask voters for more money for the project because of delays in the approval process for the swap and increases in the price of steel, copper, concrete, fuel and in the prevailing wage. The board is eyeing a December referendum for the extra costs, but a new cost estimate must be done before the amount can be ascertained. Superintendent Ralph Ferrie said the board would need to have possession of the land by early October in order to do so.
Epic Management, a Piscataway-based construction management company, estimated in January that the school’s cost would increase by about $36 million to $119 million. That survey was based on a timeline that assumed bids for the project would be awarded in June, and Dr. Ferrie said June 27 that a new timeline cannot be created until the board owns the land. The estimate also projects costs up to December 2008.
The board also is considering increasing the size of the proposed high school to accommodate increasing enrollment. In order to include the costs for the increase in a December referendum, the board would need to own the Thompson Park land and approve a contract with an architect for educational specifications and schematics for the expanded project by Aug. 29.

