DEP says no indication of toxic waste at proposed track site

The Dept. of Environmental Protection has reported that it did not find any indication of a toxic waste site where the township is planning to build a bicycle pump track, Mayor Howard Burrell said at the Sept. 28 Council meeting.

The proposed track is being planned on 11.3 acres of property on Black Creek Drive, near where a bike and walking trail is also proposed.

A portion of that 11.3 acres of land had been used as a temporary storage site for material generated by the Dept. of Public Works in the process of doing its work.

“By necessity, all municipal DPW organizations have such a site,” Burrell said.

The DEP had received a report from a township resident suggesting the proposed track site was a solid waste dump. The DEP report indicated that there was significantly less material at the site then when the DEP visited the site in 2018.

Burrell said Excel Environmental Resources tested 16 different samples from the proposed track site and none of those samples indicated toxic materials at the site.

Business Administrator Charles Voelker said more material be removed by the end of October and the township will soon remove asphalt from when the Senior Center parking lot was redone. Some of the material will be recycled.

There is also about 100 tons of solid that will be removed.

“That’s the plan for the next month or so,” Voelker. “We will work on that over the winter so it’s ready for the spring month when we can do the work.”

Councilman Andrew PItsker gave some perspective on the 110 truckloads that it will take to clear out the proposed track site, saying it will take about 5,000 truckloads to clear out the material on the Silver Spruce Drive dump site.

“This will be a positive factor that will contribute to the achievement of our objective of attracting more paying MUA customers, which is essential if we are to reduce our municipality’s significant MUA-related deficit,” Burrell said.