Media/Press is "cc"
WeLoveVentnor
membership list and other interested parties are
"bcc".
For those interested
in the issue of the dredge spoils facility
proposed for 12 acres of Ventnor West's
"habitat", the WeLoveVentnor Forums are trying
to keep up with breaking developments at ...
And there is a DEP
blueprint of the CDF -- which WeLoveVentnor got
"color-enhanced" -- pictured at
Members of the press
are welcome to use this image if they provide
proper authorship "credits" as follows:
DEP ICW/CDF
blueprint as color-enhanced by WeLoveVentnor,inc.
In the upcoming
election on May 13th, the Row A
slate of challengers (Kelly, Piatt, Weintrob)
has come out AGAINST creation of a dredge spoils
facility in a residential neighborhood of
Ventnor as an "environmental disaster" in the
making. The fairly recent example of Stone
Harbor's dredge spoils problems show that it
cost that community $4 million to take care of
dredge spoils from a back bay.
In the upcoming
election on May 13th, the Row B
slate of incumbents (Kreischer, Vespertino,
Schafer) is believed to favor this use for
Ventnor's publicly-owned land inasmuch as they
passed Resolution 139 of 2003 in December 2003,
which authorized execution of a Standard Spoil
Disposal Agreement with the DEP's Division of
Engineering & Construction's Bureau of Coastal
Engineering. The date of that Agreement was
12/18/03. Images of the Resolution and
Agreement documents will be posted to the
WeLoveVentnor Forums.
Most recent "news":
Tuesday
afternoon 5/6/08: Mr. Risilia of
DEP, who appeared to be the final review officer
on this matter, was phoned by a resident of the
Ventnor West neighborhood to inquire about
status of the matter since resident petitions
had been sent in. Risilia stated that DEP had
enough petitions in hand that they realized the
need for a full public hearing. The timing of a
hearing would most likely be in mid-June, with
its higher summer population of residents.
Location would be in Ventnor.
Tuesday
afternoon: Atlantic County
Executive Dennis Levinson got an e-mail from a
local Ventnor resident, elevating his awareness
of the Ventnor West "problem"/"issue" and the
possibility that there might be some traceable
pay-to-play implications, if a dredge spoils
dump site is erected. The incumbent
administration has enjoyed longstanding dealings
with the CEO of the waste soils handling firm
Pure Earth (Mark Alsentzer) though his past
association with Alliance (one of Ventnor's
chosen "redevelopers" for North East Ventnor).
Among these dealings are a pending proposal to
"gift" a city-owned property to Mr. Alsentzer,
which was acquired in 2004 with tax dollars for
$205,000. Dredge spoils will need hauling
away, after the silt has de-watered. Pure Earth
owns two Vineland, NJ subsidiaries (MART and
Casie Oil) which perform this sort of
work. Current Ventnor incumbents also have
a recent reportable 2008 campaign donation of
$3,200 from ACFD Development (Northfield, NJ)
and a further $1,000 personal donation from one
of ACFD's partners. That firm does Brownfields
cleanup work. A site handling dredge spoils
might encounter contaminants in the dredged
materials. The DEP assigns Brownfields
designations. Funding for cleanup comes, in
part, from government grants.
Tuesday
evening: Atlantic County
Freeholders meeting was attended by Ventnor West
residents and VERG and WLV representatives, to
bring the issue of documented threatened species
at the site, and the need for public hearings,
to their attention. While stating that it's not
their "jurisdiction" in a matter involving a
town and the DEP and the Army Corps, two of the
Freeholders came up to the group after the
meeting and said they would make further inquiry
about this matter.
Wednesday
e-mail of 5/7/08: Former Ventnor
Community Association president Lou Jahn had
sent a lengthy letter to DEP citing a lot of the
history of that site, including the ongoing
"prescriptive easement" use of the waterway by
the public, and the fact that chlorine
storage and sewage storage tanks got capped off
(but not emptied) after the old sewage pumping
operation shut down around 1968-70. The latter
may be leaching, such that what gets "dredged"
is likely to have contaminants. The response
from DEP's Nancy Lawrence (below) suggests that
other layers of DEP might need to get involved
in reviewing the technical, and environmental
impact, aspects of a CDF at that location.
