Asphalt plant’s noise, traffic experts testify

BY JENNIFER DOME
Staff Writer

The Brick Township Zoning Board of Adjustment heard from three more experts June 8 as part of Stavola Industries’ application to rebuild its existing 40-year-old asphalt plant located off Chambers Bridge Road.

The asphalt plant is located on approximately 17 acres in an RR2, or rural residential, zone. To the east of the plant is the township municipal building, to the north and northeast is county parks property, to the west is the Garden State Parkway, and to the south is Chambers Bridge Road. The Metedeconk River lies on the north side of the site beyond the county’s land.

Stavola is required to come before the board to get approval for a use variance, as well as preliminary and final site plan approval. The use variance is needed because the asphalt plant is not an approved use for an RR2 zone and because the proposed height of the company’s storage silos is higher than the 35-foot maximum height allowance, according to township Assistant Planner Tara Paxton.

Thomas P. Branch, Stavola’s director of engineering and development, said the company acquired the site from its former owner, Manzo, in 2001. The proposal is to replace the existing 2.5-ton-batch plant with a 5-ton-batch plant that can turn out a batch a minute, or about 300 tons of asphalt in one hour, according to Stavola’s operations manager, Lee Parisi. The company has also proposed erecting four 150-ton silos that would keep the product hot for trucks that come to the site to collect the asphalt.

Last week, Jeff Meeker, Stavola’s asphalt plant manufacturer, testified that his industry no longer builds less than 5-ton-batch asphalt plants. Paxton had questioned why the existing 2.5-ton-batch plant couldn’t be replaced with a newer plant with the same production capacity. Board members also asked Meeker why the existing plant couldn’t be retrofitted to bring it up to today’s environmental standards.

“It would become cost-prohibitive, quite frankly,” Meeker said. “It’s like putting an old engine on a new car.

“This proposed facility would be considered state-of-the-art,” he added.

Board members and the applicant also discussed whether or not asphalt recycling would take place at the new plant. The existing plant is not able to recycle asphalt, Meeker said. The new plant would have that capability, but under state regulations Stavola will only be able to recycle its own asphalt.

Board member Dan Toth said he was concerned about this because there have been reports about PCBs, a known carcinogen, being found in recycled asphalt in other areas of the country.

The board also heard from a noise consultant, Edward Potenta, who said he compared the noise levels on the site while the plant was running, and at night when it was shut down. He also used information from the manufacturer to calculate what the noise level would be with the new plant operating.

The majority of the noise in the area came from traffic on Chambers Bridge Road and the Garden State Parkway, Potenta testified.

He said that at two of his testing areas the decibel readings with the new plant would be within the state’s accepted range. On the south property line, which is closest to the residents on Oak Tree Road, Potenta said he suggested that Stavola should build a berm that would lower the noise level to within the state standards.

John Rea, Stavola’s traffic engineer, also testified on June 8. The board’s traffic engineer, Mark Kataryniak, was not present at the meeting. Board Chairman John Rentschler said Kataryniak would review the transcripts and respond to the applicant’s traffic engineer at Stavola’s next appearance before the board, Sept. 28.

Rea said he visited the site on several occasions, including dates in November 2003 and again in April of this year. Traffic counts were done at three intersections — the entrance site to Stavola’s property, the jug handle at the municipal building on Chambers Bridge Road, and the jug handle for the Garden State Parkway entrance just northwest of the Stavola site.

These intersections are able to handle the truck traffic presently produced by the Stavola site, Rea said. Even if the new plant doubled the amount of truck traffic entering the site, which Rea said would be a worse-case scenario, the intersections could still handle the increase.

Stavola’s site plan calls for moving the gate farther away from Chambers Bridge Road, allowing more room for trucks to stack on site, Rea said. In addition, if Ocean County officials approve, Stavola also plans to expand the shoulder near their entrance from 8 feet wide to approximately 13 feet wide, he said.

The applicant has proposed a restoration plan for the 300-foot buffer that is now required because of the Metedeconk River’s C1 designation — the state’s highest level of protection against water pollution.

In the past there has never been a stormwater management system in effect on the site, Paxton said. Therefore, any runoff from the property has gone directly into the Metedeconk River. But as part of Stavola’s application, the company will install a stormwater management system, including inlets that will separate solids from water; a vegetated filter strip area; and an infiltration basin, which will recharge water into the ground.

The site does have contaminated soil located underneath the plant, according to Stavola’s remediation expert, Elizabeth Davis. If Stavola’s application is approved, the plant will be taken down and the soil will be remediated, Paxton said.

The other option besides remediating the soil is for the applicant to monitor the soil contamination. Company officials said they are waiting to get approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for a deed notice that states there is known contamination on the site. With a deed notice, Stavola would have to continually monitor that the contamination has not moved into the groundwater and there is no moving plume.

Davis testified on May 11 that the soil contamination reaches 8 feet deep, but there is no groundwater contamination and no moving plume. Paxton noted that the water table is at 6 feet from the surface.

Davis said she tested permanent monitoring wells that are downgrade from the plant and toward the Metedeconk River, and found no contamination there.

Stavola, who has been a sponsor of SummerFest since 2003, this year with a $3,000 donation, will come back before the Board of Adjustment on Sept. 28, the soonest that the board’s schedule would allow another special hearing. The meetings are held at the township municipal building, starting at 7:30 p.m.