Township officials were forced to make an about-face last week regarding plans to accept dredged materials on the Brick Township landfill site.
An interlocal agreement called for 30,000 cubic yards of material dredged from the Belmar Marine Basin to level out the uneven topography of the landfill, located on Sally Ike Road. Under the agreement, the township would earn $5 per cubic yard for accepting the material.
Plans were under way to expand the project and accept material from other towns, such as Point Pleasant.
An ordinance was being crafted that would designate a flat fee for those towns, as well as businesses and residents interested in taking advantage of the service.
Because of the throngs of residents who called town hall and showed up at the June 9 council meeting in opposition to the plan, the Belmar agreement was rescinded and the ordinance never got off the ground.
With the current leadership’s admirable environmental record in mind, it is reasonable to accept their assurances that the project would be safe for Brick residents.
Any spoils accepted on the site would be certified as clean by the Department of Environmental Protection, they said. Presumably, these officials were privy to scientific assurances that the project would not agitate the delicate condition of Brick’s sole Superfund site.
But the public knows what it knows –– chiefly that the words Superfund and dredged materials don’t mix comfortably in the same sentence.
The plan could be as harmless as the DEP says, but the burden was on Brick’s leaders to explain that to residents when they were drafting the resolution and ordinance.
Instead, the Belmar agreement and dumping ordinance were given little more than the discussion typically associated with granting a bingo license.
The plan was mentioned as a great ratable that could net the township over $1 million in the long run.
The significant fact that the landfill is a Superfund site with a history of contamination was never mentioned once.
Whatever future actions are taken to remedy the situation at the landfill should be discussed in a more forthright manner with the public.