Developer must perform full battery of soil tests

BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer

MILLSTONE — The owner of a proposed subdivision on Paint Island Springs and Millstone roads will have to perform more soil contaminant tests on his land than he had anticipated.

Charles Noreika had sought a waiver from some of the soil tests required by state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on his 30-acre property at the Jan. 25 Zoning Board meeting. After lengthy questioning of the applicant and his engineer, Robert Weatherford, the board voted 6-1 to deny the waiver.

Only Vice Chairman Steven Barthelmes voted to grant the waiver.

Noreika wants to divide the tract into 10 residential lots, according to Weatherford. An additional lot on the property, which contains a John Deere tractor dealership, would remain on the site, though it would be reduced from 6 acres to 3.6 acres.

The township requires one soil sample for pesticides on every 2 acres of a potential subdivision, according to Weatherford. There is a provision in the ordinance that permits the applicant to receive a waiver for the DEP cleanup criteria that would only require pesticide sampling.

Weatherford said he requested the waiver for his client because the matter is a cost issue. Weatherford said full DEP testing would cost $1,000 per test, totaling $16,000.

Township Engineer Matt Shafai said a waiver would affect every lot. If the board granted the waiver, the applicant would not have to complete a full soil analysis on every lot, although testing for pesticides, lead and arsenic would still need to be done.

The DEP requires testing for approximately 100 contaminants, according to Shafai.

Weatherford said substances on the DEP’s list, such as benzene and beryllium, are found on sites with industrial activity, which never took place on the farm, according to Weatherford.

Township Planner Richard Coppola said he has concerns about some of the buildings that would remain on the property. He said the township’s Environmental Commission sent the board a letter noting that total petrochemical hydrocarbons (TPH) had been detected in the vicinity of one of the existing commercial buildings.

Noreika, who said he had previously owned an oil company, said the TPH likely came from trucks parked at that facility.

The amount of TPH detected fell below DEP cleanup levels, according to Noreika.

Coppola told the board the Environmental Commission recommended that any waiver require at least one additional soil test boring in the area contaminated with TPH.

Weatherford said the bulk of the property had previously been a farm, and that there is no evidence of any previous commercial activity.

Noreika said he was not aware that the property had had any other use since 1942. None of the proposed residential lots has buildings on them, he said.

Even if industrial activity took place on the farm prior to 1942, according to Weatherford, the contaminates would be deeper in the ground than the 6-inch borings required in the DEP testing.

Weatherford said there was evidence of DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) on the acreage, a pesticide widely used in the 1950s, but the levels fell below the DEP cleanup criteria.

Weatherford said the well on the property tested clean. He also said there are no in-ground tanks on the tract, only above-ground, registered propane tanks.

New board member Steven Lambros asked if the Environmental Commission had professional advice when it made its recommendation. Shafai said the commission only heard comments from him.

Both Shafai and Coppola advised the board that three additional tests on the current commercial part of the property would suffice as long as the board required full DEP testing in the waiver if any other contamination was found.

However, the board denied the waiver, and Noreika will have to conduct the full range of DEP contaminant testing on the entire site.