It’s almost frightening to read “Municipal officials have taken one step closer with the state to purchase the Route 520 property that formerly housed the Marlboro State Psychiatric Hospital.”
As a former Marlboro councilman having sat at the original discussions with representatives of New Jersey’s Treasury Department in 1999 concerning Marl-boro’s “letter of intent” indicating the township’s cautious offer for such an adventurous prospect, I shudder at the potential consequences for once again re-entertaining such an endeavor.
After all, at those original hospital meetings it was mutually evaluated that Trenton had abandoned and obviously dumped a horrendous environmentally toxic waste garbage lot impacting 411 acres to only linger about aimlessly with never any plans for remediation by Trenton of its environmental hazards.
It seems fair to equate Trenton’s abandonment of the 411-acre hospital property with the private sector closing up shop of an established chemical company and then declaring bankruptcy, leaving the area subject to responsibility for toxic waste cleanup to be paid for by rank-and-file citizenry taxes, partly through federal or state mandates.
This analogy herein suggests we should ask Trenton to keep its own house in order by cleansing a state asset property and picking up the tab for the costs generated. The thought probably never entered their mind.
But then I might ask where were all the environmental enthusiasts at the time the hospital was abandoned de-manding they clean up the mess Trenton left behind. “Corporate America” usually reigns. Why not “Corporate Trenton?”
It has been stated that costs for purchasing the hospital property could range between $5 million and $10 million with the cleanup tab hovering between $10 million and $30 million.
Such extravagant numbers might even challenge the ego of Mayor Robert Kleinberg. But then, he does have the initial grant of $127,000 from the Haz-ardous Site Remediation Fund to start the ball rolling. That should cover the salaries of another one of those infamous Marlboro useless “consulting firms.”
Herbert Resnick
Marlboro