Published in the Asbury Park Press
BY JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
Dover residents fight proposal for Rt. 9 junk-to-alcohol plant
DOVER TOWNSHIP — David Zena has done a lot of online research since he learned of a Washington company's plans to build an ethanol plant not far from his Wilkinson Drive home.
What he's found out has convinced him to fight Fuel Frontiers Inc.'s proposal to place the plant on 6 acres at the Ocean County Remanufacturing Center off Route 9.
"I love this area, and I love this town, but you would think we'd have learned our lesson by now when it comes to something like this," Zena said.
The 45-year-old Zena, his wife Pam, 43, and their friend Robert Stewart, 53, who lives in the nearby Weatherly development, have banded together in an effort to block the plant.
The company has secured preliminary approval for $84 million in tax-exempt bond financing from the New Jersey Economic Development Authority for the design, construction and initial start-up operations of the waste-to-ethanol facility.
However, Fuel Frontiers must still obtain state permits and likely will need site plan approval from Dover before construction can move forward.
Zena said he is concerned about the safety of the plant, which would convert tires and wood chips into ethanol, or ethyl alcohol. The ethanol would then be trucked from the site and blended with gasoline to make motor fuel.
Zena noted that the Fuel Frontiers plant would be the first waste-to-ethanol facility Fuel Frontiers has constructed. "Where is the expertise coming to develop this plant, to make this ethanol?" he asked.
Fuel Frontiers President Jack Young has said that he and his business partners have many years of experience in the energy business.
Young has said that representatives from Fuel Frontiers and its partner, Startech Environmental Corp., will attend an upcoming Township Council meeting to answer questions about the company's plans in Dover.
Stewart, who has lived in his home for 23 years, said he is worried that an accident at the plant could jeopardize the safety of thousands of people. Traffic on Route 9, where the plant is located, already backs up regularly, and it would be impossible to move people out of the area quickly, he said.
Stewart also noted that numerous schools, including Toms River High School North, Intermediate North, North Dover Elementary School and the Joseph A. Citta Elementary School, are all a short distance from the Ocean County Remanufacturing site. The YMCA off Whitty Road, where the Toms River Girls Softball League plays games, is less than a mile from the facility.
"It belongs anywhere else but around people," he said. "If there is an accident, how are you going to evacuate the area?"
Young has said there will be no emissions from the plant and no smokestack, but Stewart and the Zenas don't believe that assertion.
"It's a first-of-its-kind plant," Stewart said. "We've got enough poisons around here. We have enough kids with cancer in this town."
Dover's history includes groundwater contamination caused by dye- and resin-making operations at the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. plant off Route 37 West, and additional water pollution beneath the site of Reich Farm, a former chicken farm where an independent trucker dumped more than 4,500 barrels of waste from Union Carbide Corp.'s Bound Brook plant in the early 1970s.
Both Reich Farm and Ciba are on the national Superfund site list, and uneasiness about new industrial applications is palpable in town. In 1996, the discovery of elevated levels of some childhood cancers in Dover led to a massive state and federal investigation into possible environmental links to the higher number of cancer cases.
That study ended with the release of a report in December 2001 that drew associations between higher leukemia levels in girls and exposure to contaminated water from United Water Toms River's Parkway well field, and air pollution from Ciba.
Researchers stressed at the time that the small number of cases makes it possible that the associations that were found were the result of mere chance.
But many people in Dover believe some residents' health has been negatively affected by previous industrial activities and waste dumping here, which may make Fuel Frontiers' plan to build the ethanol facility a tough sell in town.
The Zenas and Stewart certainly hope so. They want to rally people who live in the neighborhoods nearest the plant to write letters opposing it, and attend any public meeting that may be held.
They are being assisted by West Dover resident Carol A. Benson, a township activist who attends many township meetings and frequently speaks out on environmental, traffic and code enforcement topics.
"I don't think the residents really know about this," Benson said. "I think if they knew more about it, they would be very upset."
Township Council members have said they are reserving judgment on the waste-to-ethanol facility until they learn more.
The Zenas and Stewart want to make sure the council members have all the available information about the plant, and not just facts distributed by those who want to build it.
"We understand they have to advance the technology somehow, and build these plants somewhere," Pam Zena said. "Just not on top of all the things that we have right here, in a residential area."
Published in the Asbury Park Press on 05/12/06
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