Redevelopment will be taxing on Milltown

Once again Ford Avenue is in the news. This time the discussion is the concern about how to best remediate the land to clear it for the residential- and commercialredevelopment plans that are pending.

The current suggestion by the redevelopment folks is to cover contaminated soil with 2 feet of clean topsoil and put an orange plastic fence around the covered areas - that sounds like putting a bandage on an open knife wound with the blade still in.

The so-called activists (I don't like that word or the images it conjures up either, but they are right in this case) believe it is not a good way. In truth, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) uses this approach for commercial properties. A zoning technicality allows such a poor attempt at remediation along with development that is inconsistent with such remediation. Sounds to me like the fix is in. We are getting the housing and business redevelopment we do not want, along with traffic and congestion and further environmental damage.

Is anyone sick and tired of this? I sure am. For one thing, whether you put clean soil on top or not (where one finds clean soil in New Jersey, I have to wonder), building on that site will shift things, including soil and its contaminants, and a plastic fence is no barrier to literally tons of building weight and disturbance. This will affect us negatively in the long run and the short run, and the debate over whether it is happening will continue.

The activists put forth an equally disturbing idea. It involves heating the soil to rid it of contaminants. Isn't that just going to turn a soil-contamination concern into an air-quality problem?

There is a simple solution - stop the cancer that is redevelopment. It is a bad idea. It is that simple. The citizens of this town will not get tax relief from it, as more services will be required by the residents there, and on top of that we will get further contamination and inconvenience.

The mayor, the council and the engineers will be long gone by the time the cost of this project to all of us can be properly calculated, but we will certainly pay a heavy toll in the end.

Elizabeth Peter

Milltown