SPOTSWOOD–The Borough Council introduces a $1.923 million bond ordinance providing funding for various improvements to the George Street Water Treatment Plant.
The total cost for the various improvements is $1.93 million. With the $1.923 million bond ordinance, the borough will make a $7,000 down payment to cover the remaining amount, according to the council agenda.
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The council adopted the bond ordinance on Oct. 21.
On Sept. 4, the borough council tabled the bond ordinance to get more accurate numbers for the costs for the various improvements needed for the plant.
Resident Collene Wronko said, “My issue is here is that in 2013, the council at that time decided that $400,000 was to be diverted to Daniel Road [water] pumping station to produce more water.”
By doing various improvements to the George Street plant, Seely said the borough is trying to get away from purchasing its water from East Brunswick.
Wronko said that according to the borough’s 2013 audit, the council decided not to restore the George Street Water Treatment Plant, which was destroyed during Hurricane Irene in 2011.
“Why are we restoring the plant when we had the money back then and diverted it and why isn’t that [Daniel Road] pumping station putting out what we thought it was going to put out with respect to water?” Wronko said.
Seely, who was a councilman in 2013, said that at that time the council and the mayor decided it would not be in the best interest of the borough to redo [the George Street] water plant at that time because the cost was quite extensive. At that time the council wasn’t looking at a temporary pumping station but was looking at totally redoing the entire plant.
“For the Daniel Road [pumping station], the Department of Environmental Protection would not allow us to increase the pumping capacity,” Seely said. “We moved the money down there to refurbish the plant because it was an older plant with a chlorine type water filtering system that could take out radio nuclei … we are probably one of the only towns around that has a plant that can take that down. That’s why the money was spent there because that was our only working water plant.”
Seely said he plans on getting the figures from 2013 to find out how the $400,000 in FEMA funding was spent.
For more information, visit www.spotswoodboro.com/borough-council.
Contact Vashti Harris at vharris@newspapermediagroup.com.
