L.B., O'port officials get pollution update

L.B., O’port officials get pollution update
BY KENNY WALTER Staff Writer

OCEANPORT — Officials from both Long Branch and Oceanport were given an exclusive tour last week of the $20 million project designed to eliminate runoff from Monmouth Park that is the cause of pollution in Branchport Creek.

The tour took place June 24, led by the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority.

Oceanport Councilman Joseph Irace said that every Oceanport council member except Jerry Bertekap was there, as well as Oceanport Mayor Michael Mahon, Long Branch Councilwoman Kate Billings, former Long Branch Councilman Anthony Giordano, Long Branch resident Robin Kampf and Oceanport resident Jen McDermott.

Irace said he was impressed by the tour given by the Sports & Exposition Authority.

“It went pretty well. I was impressed with the size and scope of the project,” he said. “It’s a massive project to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

“We kind of went in there and I thought it would be a dog and pony show, but I was very impressed.”

Irace said that Monmouth Park’s position as the borough’s largest taxpayer put the borough in a difficult position.

“We are kind of in the middle of it,” he said. “We want to see the racetrack survive and flourish because it is our largest ratable, but also we understand that they can’t continue to pollute the water.

“When we met with them through the mayor, they were able to agree to this and put this drainage in so the water doesn’t overflow and go into the rivers,” Irace said. “They’ve always been good neighbors, except for this.”

Irace described what the project is going to entail.

“They are going to put a 10 million-gallon sewage treatment plant in the Elkwood section,” he said. “It’s unbelievable, the retention pond that they’ve done and what they are going to do to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

“They’ve actually gone above and beyond what they were ordered to do,” he added. “I think they realized it’s been a problem in the past, and they are looking to fix that.”

Irace said the project is moving along slowly because the track is active with horses nine months a year.

“We tried to pin them down on how much water would have to come down in order to overflow the system,” he said. “They haven’t come up to that number since the horses have been in the barn.

“They really look like they understand the issue, and they are trying to push the project forward quicker,” he added. “Part of the problem is that the horses are there, and they can’t do some of the heavy work during the nine months or so that the horses are there.

“The work gets done in the winter time. They are ahead of schedule now and have already gone out to bid for the second phase of the project.”

Irace said he doesn’t know how much rain would have to fall before a problem would occur.

“They couldn’t give us specifics on how much rain would have to fall, but I think we’d need 6 inches of rain in a 24-hour period,” he said. “There are other factors of how fast it would have to fall before they run into a problem with overflow in the creek.”

Irace said that one of the most important aspects of the project is that dirty and clean water no longer mix.

“The clean water doesn’t co-mingle with the horse water,” he said. “The water from the parking lots doesn’t co-mingle, either.

“They are trying to take the dirty water and make sure it doesn’t mix with the clean water coming off the roofs and the parking lot,” he added. “The main thing is, I think they realized this time they have to get it right.”

Authority spokesman John Samerjan said he was happy with the progress that has been made.

“There has been a lot going on the last two years,” he said. “We are in the process of a $20 million project for long-term storm-water management.

“There has been tremendous progress made there already,” he added.

Samerjan explained some of the finances of the project.

“We submitted an engineering solution to DEP [state Department of Environmental Protection], and they agreed to it,” he said. “The state environmental trust provided a low-interest loan to execute that plan.”

Irace said the borough is making payments and is being paid back by the Sports & ExpositionAuthority.

“We are the ones who borrowed the money on behalf of the Sports and Exposition Authority to get this thing moving along,” he said. “They are paying through the trust, and we signed off on it and they pay us back.”

Samerjan said he expects the project to be completed by Aug. 31, 2012.

“There has been substantial progress made already, and there is major construction involved in the long-term solution, including the building of a pumping station and the replacing of 50-year-old piping,” he said. “That takes time, but in the meantime, as each phase goes on, there is major progress being made to minimize the impact of the storm-water runoff.

“A lot of steps have been taken to better control the runoff as it is, and the most significant thing is the agreement with Two River Storage Authority for them to take up to 500,000 gallons a day of runoff when we have major storms,” he added. “This becomes an issue when there are major rain events.”

Kampf, founder of the Rivergate Keepers, a group aiming to protect the river, was critical of how long the project is taking.

“It’s work that’s happening, and I’m really glad to see it, but it’s work that should have happened a long time ago,” she said. “I’m glad to see we are actually making some progress.”

Kampf is skeptical of the 2012 completion date, however.

“Working with public contractors, timelines and deadlines are often affected by weather and other things, and the one thing they are talking about is they don’t want to traumatize the horses,” she said. “I’m a big animal lover, but I’m also a big river user and I live next to the river, and we’ve been traumatized for the last few years.

“Ideally, shut down the track and do the work. That would probably never happen because it is all about money, and that is why the timeline is so stretched out.”

Kampf also said that there haven’t been any progress reports on the pollutants made public.

“What is surprising to me is that there doesn’t sound like there is any real checks and balances,” she said. “The work that they are doing, they need to be sampling the water that comes out of the track.

“I don’t know if they are doing that yet. I haven’t been told that they haven’t done it, but I haven’t been told that they have done it. I am hoping we are able to get some numbers to show that these improvements are working.

“We can talk in futuristic terms, but I want to see the numbers. We should have regular checkpoints along the way,” Kampf said.

Irace said the borough has spoken to federal representatives about possibly dredging the creek, which could hypothetically happen as Monmouth Park completes its project.

“If we could get it dredged, hopefully we can get it as normal as we can,” he said. “We hope that becomes part of the project at some point.

“I think it could happen simultaneously, but it may only happen as Monmouth Park is finishing their part of the project,” Irace said.





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