Herald & Lantern 23 May '84 53

Municipal Collection in Demand Trash Aches Now Health Crisis

By E.J. DUFFY VILLAS — Deputy Mayor Robert Fothergill told township officials Monday night that he will ask his colleagues on the lame duck township committee to declare a health emergency tonight. "We're getting calls from all the commercial establishments that have dumpsters, " asking the township to collfect their trash, he informed a joint meeting of the municipal Incinerator Authority and Solid Waste Advisory Council. Private haulers, who have been collecting trash for many township busmisses, increased their fees as much as 35 percent to counteract extra hauling costs to the county's Woodbine landfill that opened last week, noted Joseph Lonergan, advisory council member and township councilman-elect. TO COUNTERACT the haulers' increased collection costs, businesses have contacted the township for trash pick-up, Fothergill explained. One particular business, he said, could easily fill a township trash trudk during a single collection stop a week. Because of the added demand for municipal collection and a prohibition against township committee's hiring of personnel during the transition period^et ween the lame duck government and the township council that replaces it July 1. Fothergill, township committeeman and mayor-elect, proposed the emergency measure. If approved, it will allow the committee to hire trash truck workers and to rent a truck until expected vehicles are ordered and delivered. "We've got a health emergency,' Fothergill said. The closing of Smith's Landfill in Lower last fall, with its $7-a-ton tipping fees, forced the township to pay twice that rate at Mar-Tee landfill in Middle Township. With considerable fighting against the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), county and local officials convinced Superior Court to allow Mar Tee continued operations until the new county landfill opening. Trash collectors from the lower end of the county face expensive hauls to Woodbine until a county MUA transfer station opens in Burleigh, Middle Township. Even then, haulers like Lower Township can ex pect to pay more than $26 a ton in tipping fees DURING THE FIRST quarter of 1984. Fothergill reported Monday, the township

diverted 124 tons of paper. 20 tons of glass and two tons of aluminum from its trash through voluntary recycling in portions of the municipality Although a second recycling vehicle is expected to be on township streets next week, Fothergill argued that tipping fees and hauling costs could be avoided altogether if the township built an incinerator to burn its and neighboring municipalities' trash and sell the potential power such a plant could generate At' a municipal incinerator, Fothergill said, the township could dispose of its waste for $17 a ton and sell steam power to Stokes Laundry erf Wildwood Crest, willing to relocate there with its 200 employes The laundry woul^use GQjgreeni of the steam power whale atfcvlsion of Rutgers University, he added, is interested in converting Harbison- Walker Refactories' huge concrete tanks into steam-regulated marine facilities if the proposed incinerator is located at its closed Sunset Beach magnesite plant. A POTENTIAL CUSTOMER for inciner-ator-produced electricity might be the county MUA's sewage treatment plant nearby, noted David MacKensie, a representative of Prudential-Bache invited to the joint meeting to review financing options for the proposed project. If the incinerator could supply the sewage treatment plant with power and, perhaps, burn its sludge as well, the MUA would save the cost of hauling the sludge to its Woodbine landfill. MUA officials therefore, might look more favorably on the project, speculated Patricia Bowman, authority member appointed to replace Mayor Peggie Bieberbach as chairman during the meeting. Bowman saw the possible MUA sewage treatment plant electrical connection as "a good leverage point" with the county agency. If it proceeds with the incinerator plan, the township authority will need leverage with the MUA It holds a state Board of Public Utilities ( BPU ) franchise to control trash within the county ASKED IF THE BPU would grant Lower a separate franchise or amend the county MUA's to allow the incinerator I should the MUA oppose it, MacKensie replied, "I don't want to predict what the BPU will do." He suggested that the township work with the MUA toward amending its Solid Waste Plan to permit a municipal incinerator. Financing the project would be tough, he said, without a settlement of the

franchise question "I frankly don't know if the DEP has the power to go in and amend the county plan." MacKensie added later "I think it might The DEP side-stepped the county Solid Waste Plan (to close other local dumpsites when the new MUA landfill opened i by ex tending for 180 days last week the life of Structures and Foundations landfill in Woodbine — so its owners could make enough money to close it properly County and local officials vehemently objected to the DEP action and the county MUA threatened to block it by lawsuit Fothergill saw the dispute as evidence that the MUA does not have final word on trash disposal The MUA didn't have a monopoly »

on recycled trash, he noted, and recently, abandoned its recycling effort it really hasn't been established to my satisfaction that they (MUA officials i own our trash. Fothergill said we may have an argument in the courts." he added, insisting, we should have some say" in local trash disposal Citing the costs of a court challenge to MUA disposal authority, township / Councilman-elect David F Brand J r ask ed. "Is this going to be put loathe taxpayers''" I would be willing to put it out to tie taxpayers." Bowman replied whjfle acknowledging her lack of expertise on t^ie mechanics of doing so \ <y\ \

? >i mh — - '■** ~ . - Jfth-. • kmu — ABO Wa'il SPRING RITE — Warmer water temperature and the Delaware Bay's highest spring tide brought thousands of horseshoe crabs ashore at Reeds Reach last weekend, wherr they deposited fertilized eggs iiuclusters at the high tide level. That's fine with the migrating shore birds, according to Ann (>alli. assistant director of the Wellands«institute. because they feast on the eggs. \nd the herring gulls enjoy the crabs, many of which die either after completing their mating, or because they're flipped over by tidal action.

Fox Sues Phil for Libel

( From Page 1 1 all his evidence, all his witnesses, and go to the Federal Election Commission — to the (state) Attorney General ...?" Fox asked "I will answer any bonafide, legitimate investigative agency. "Why doesn't he take em? He doesn't take em because he doesn't have a damn thing to go by," the sheriff said. "I went to (County Prosecutor John) Corino with the information," Matalucci countered. He said and Corino confirmed that the accusations about Fox was turned over to the state Election Law Enforce ment Commission (ELEC). While Corino would not comment on the matter, William Schmidt, assistant ELEC executive director, said his agency is reviewing the information forwarded from Corino, "That's show biz," Matalucci said in response to Fox's suit. "If he's telling the truth, he's got nothing to worry about," the party chairman added "I'm telling the truth so I've got nothing to worry about. " "Several alarming questions have been raised and Mr. Fox continually refuses to answer them," wrote Matalucci in a Monday morning press release, alluding to more than a dozen 1980 and 1981 in-kind campaign contributions to Fox. "WHY DID HE TRY to hide these dona tions and in-kind services?" the party chairman asked of Fox in a May 7 Matalucci press release that Fox cited in his suit. "Was Mr. Fox laundering these donations? Does Mr. Fox, who is the highest elected law enforcement office in Cape May County, think he is above the law?" Matalucci poured fuel on that fire in his latest release: "As I have stated before. a

there seems to be a lot of missing pieces to Mr Fox's Congressional campaign iinan cial disclosures. I have one more that I believe is imperative for Mr Fox to answer" "It has come to my attention that $5,000 in cash was given to Mr Fox and his Congressional campaign at a bankers' lun cheon," wrote Matalucci "Mr Fox's finance chairman gave the money back to the donor and advised that this could not I be accepted without names and addresses "Within days of the transaction. $4,500 in I large donations of $1,000 and $500 show up I with names and addresses," the party I chairman added. "This raises some I serious questions. Mr Fox. where did the I $5,000 in cash come from originally'' What J happened when the money was I back9 Who picked up the donations after I the three days and what form did these I donations take? "I DISCOVERED these questions some I time ago (when) going over Mr Fox's I disclosures for that campaign, Matalucci I continued. "My former *bartner. Floyd I Schockly. was listed as a dohor In discuss- I ing this with him I found out he had never I given any donation personally, but his I name was used." j "You cannot keep silent and ignore the I rights of the people." he concluded, ad- I dressing Fox. "Why don't you set the I record straight9" m Fox replied that his 1980 campaign I financial disclosures account for all con- I tributions in the correct manner I Matalucci's latest "question." Fox I repeated, will be further covered in an I amendment to the libel suit. I "... it's about time I did." he concluded. I referring to filing the suit. "I'm not play- I ing patty cake with (Matalucci)." j|

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