HOWELL – A plan for a solid waste transfer station is not sitting well with municipal officials or residents.
The Township Council meeting of Aug. 15 gave Howell residents a chance to address their local elected officials for the first time since a plan to build the facility came to the attention of the public in July. The residents who attended the council meeting were unanimously against the proposed transfer station.
Resource Engineering LLC has proposed the construction of a solid waste transfer station at the corner of Route 547 (Lakewood-Farmingdale Road) and Randolph Road in Howell.
A public hearing regarding the facility was scheduled to be held at a Monmouth County Board of Freeholders meeting in Freehold Borough on July 27.
The hearing was cancelled when the freeholders told those who showed up to speak about the proposed facility that new information had been received that rendered the application incomplete.
The application has been returned to the Monmouth County Solid Waste Advisory Council (SWAC), which may discuss the project during a meeting on Sept. 28.
Plans indlcate the facility would consist of a 25,000-square-foot main building, an 8,000-square-foot maintenance garage, a scale house and an office building.
Resource Engineering is proposing to accept 1,500 tons per day of bulky cleanup debris and bulky construction debris for sorting, removal of recyclable materials and subsequent transfer to an out-of-state facility for final disposal.
Mayor Theresa Berger and council members sent letters to the freeholders voicing their opposition to the solid waste facility.
Residents showed up at the council’s Aug. 15 meeting and placed their objections to the facility on the record.
“I am here to proclaim my dissatisfaction with our elected officials because this is the first time I am hearing about it,” Eve Ostrowicki said. “The fact that we as residents did not hear about this except for somebody telling us concerns me. You talk about excellent service? That is not excellent service.”
Ostrowicki said she lives about a half-mile from the site of the proposed facility and was not provided with the notification that property owners within 200 feet of the proposed site received.
Councilwoman Pauline Smith said any decision that may be made in regard to the solid waste transfer station will not be made by the Howell council.
“You need to know this is not our doing, nothing was done behind closed doors. This is a state permit that overrides anything we do or say. We did not ask for this, we did not permit this. I do not know what we might do to fight it, we are looking at that now, but it is not our doing, we did not permit it,” Smith said.
Resident Brandon Reo expressed the community’s opposition to the proposed facility and raised concerns about what he called proper notification.
“I want to stress the point, you mentioned that only people who live within 200 feet of this project (property) have to be legally notified, but what about the corridor between Route 9 and this project, which would be Alexander Avenue.
“Trucks are going to come down there, they are talking about 300 runs a day, 150 trucks in and out, they come from Route 9, they do a drop-off, go down to County Line Road. What I am trying to say to you is that the people who are impacted by it should have been notified,” Reo said.
Deputy Mayor Robert Nicastro and Councilman Bob Walsh attended the freeholders’ meeting in July with the intention of voicing their opposition to the project.
“The deputy mayor and I went to the county meeting. If they had the meeting we would have voiced our displeasure on the record at that public meeting, but they stopped the hearing, they did not have it,” Walsh told residents.
The proposed solid waste transfer station is under the jurisdiction of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. The county’s role is to update its solid waste plan.
Nicastro suggested that residents contact the DEP directly and voice their opinion about the proposal. He said he will suggest that any future meetings concerning the facility be held in Howell.
Smith offered some “old fashioned” advice to the public, saying, “What we used to do was word of mouth. We do not count on emails, we do not count on Facebook, we do not count on newspapers. Get your neighbors together, get a list of phone numbers and one goes to the other … What should you do? Organize.”
Resident Leon Pflaster said he owns properties on Randolph Road and told the council he did not receive any notices about the solid waste transfer station.
“Basically, we own all the property on Randolph Road … 150 acres from this proposed site for the transfer station to the other end of Randolph Road where it intersects Oak Glen Road and Brook Road. I am within 200 feet and I did not receive a notice, and I have a tenant on my property who also lives within 200 feet and he did not receive any notice,” Pflaster said.
He said he supports industry, but said it has to be “the right kind” of industry.
The corner of Route 547 and Randolph Road “is not an appropriate location for a 1,500-ton per day solid waste transfer station. We as citizens are extremely concerned about how all the traffic, noise and pollution will affect public safety,” Pflaster said.
“I do not know if everyone really understands what a 1,500-ton per day solid waste transfer station means. We transport steel, so we transport a lot of material out of our facility. I did a little calculation and we transport about 800 (truck) loads per year from our facility, that is in and out.
“This 1,500-ton transfer station will produce 300 truckloads a day, which is 1,650 loads per week, which is 33 truckloads per hour, which means a truckload every two minutes going in and out of that site. What we do in one year, they will do double the amount in one week,” Pflaster said.
He said he is concerned the surrounding infrastructure cannot support the proposed facility.
“Thank you, again, we hear you, I understand and we are on the same page,” Berger said, adding that residents should express their concerns to Monmouth County officials and to the DEP.
