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tj Vol. 20 No. 33 • 1M3 Snwoii Corp. All rifhti roaorvod. August 15, 1 >jiaai 'j« w>- m/"' •. . * \

14 County Hi-Tech Companies?

By E.J. Duffy "Trivial Pursuit" anyone? 1. Name 14 hi-tech companies in Cape May County. 2. Name seven? 3. How about three? Give up? Join the group. You may have f ailed this corrupted version of the popular^ board game on trivia, but you're in ^ood \ company. J /According to the state Department of \ / \ V jfcotnmerce, 14 high technology firms, with VfflBl employes, are based in the county. But • l Jkoffieih the know are skeptical, vu "F(*irteen hi-tech firms — are you kidding?x asked a laughing Robert C. Patter-

son Jr., executive director of the Cape May ' County Chamber of Commerce. •GOLLY, I DON'T KNOW what they > would be counting down here," he added, j In the s ite report, "High Technology . Developn nts in New Jersey : Patterns of s Progress," Theodore A. Minde, research economist with the Department of Com . merce and Economic Development, wrote \ that 10 of the local hi-tech firms were involved in communications, two in computer and data processing and two in research and development. A summary of his statewide findings was printed recently in an Atlantic City daily newspaper. "I was reading that*..," chuckled A. H.

"Rick" Childs, executive director ot the county's Industrial and Economic i Development Commission. "I would like to know where they got their information." When mo6t people think of hi-tech out \ fits, they picture NASA or its space-age 'suppliers, Silicon Valley microchip manufacturers, gene-splicing labs, IBM or ATAT • OFF THE TOP OF their heads. Patter son and Childs each came up with one local company that might fit the hi-tech image. Given the business categories listed in the Commerce Department report and the number of local companies purportedly involved in them, Patterson speculated on which county firms were counted.

Their true identities are "not releasable", however, Minde said, because the state's information was gleaned from individual companies' confidential financial data. The federal government, he explained, defines hi-tech companies by the number of scientists or engineers they employ If scientists and engineers represent 10 per cent of a company's work force, he said, that firm is considered hi-tech by Uncle Sam If that ratio exceeds 10 percent, Minde noted, the company is rated at a more advanced level of high technology Federal definitions are not used in compiling the Commerce Department report, 1 Page 51 Please >

News— > DigeSt ^Stories Hps Body Found gfc DIAMOND BEACH - Lower Township " Police Lt. Charles Thornton reported that t the body of Kendell Irvin, 9, of W. York Avenue, Phila., was found in the surf off XthmjD.S. Coast Guard Electronic Station r . ^4 hd&around 8 a.m. yesterday. An apj ti^ft drowning victim, the boy ana his sear have been vacationing at W«? Montgomery Avenue, Wildwood Crest. He — \ wgs reported mssing from the Crest ' JPeach 4 p.m. Monday. v t ' J /It's C/orping: Lamanna J j i CREST HAVEN — Louis J. Lamanna, ) , ' / county health officer, said last week that i he'll soon respond to a Jujy 18 article in t V the, Herald and Lantern tm»t reported 18 of 87 test sites showed heavy metal contamination when the county Health Department tested Mainland surface and ground water last summer. The department's study of those tests was released ¥ (Page 51 Please) ' ' A Volunteers CJv Count Cars AVALON — Problem : Getting a traffic count on borough streets to aid in bringing about the Dune Drive "revitalization." Solution : Request help from the Senior Citizens Club and the Avalon Land and Home Owners Assn Result:*' 'We got so many volunteers we could have included Stone Harbor and Sea Isle City," said James German of the Planning BoacdfQ a THE SQ-flwLfcED Sabatino Plan to make the iSme Drive business district safer and more attractrive has been .around for more than a year. traffic count is one prerequisite to >state Department of Trarisportation (DOT) approval of additional traffic lights. It's called a Signal Warrant ' Analysis. DOT will use three jToad- tube automatic traffic count recorders (ATRs), according to John McCarthy, DOT traffic engineer for the county, in addition to the manual counts. German approached the Senior Citizens, headed by John Walters, and the Land and (Page 18 Please)

Doris Ward Skip Kehr at Computer

11 wLDoris Ward VOLUNTEERS — John Bosford, left, and Dick Goodwin count Avalon traffic at 42nd Street and Ocean Drive as part of the Dune Drive "revitalization" project. It was mighty hot and the lemonade in that thermos came in handy.

County Winning Utility Cost War

By JOE ZELNIK CREST HAVEN - Let's hope Skip Kehr has an understanding wife. Kehr (Harry E ), county Facilities and Services, director, could get a phone call in the middle of the night this winter saying, "I just told the boiler to go on, and it didn't." And the caller will be a computer! Sure, Skip. Those were among the "options" Kehr and representatives of Morie Energy Management Inc. of Millville discussed with county freeholders last Thursday. HIGHLIGHT OF Kehr's report was that energy management measures at the correctional center ( prison) had achieved a 19.4 percent savings in electric consumption in their first six months. That's a dollar savings of $6,131. The couhty set up its plan to reduce the cost of utilities in county buildings in 1982, under the initiative of Freeholder Ralph W. Evans. The prison was the first and mo6t challenging target, because it's occupied around-the-clock and the temperature can't be set back. B£orie got the contract to improve the efficiency of the utilities at the low-bid juice of $25,700 plus $6,950 for a computer that will be used 20 percent of the time for "central control" of energy-related tasks, 80

percent for other department functions That Apple 2-E is linked to a microprocessor at the prison — "Buck Rogers equipment," Kehr called it — and the result is that Kehr, in his Crest Haven office, can get accurate readings or readouts on such things as temperature, when belts should be changed, when to lubricate, etc. The next j>roject is the Health Building where Morie got the $19,950 low bid contract and is 75 percent completed. That (Page 18 Please)

3 Towns' j Sodium Still High

Bj JOE ZELNIK CREST HAVEN — Drinking water in Cape May, Stone Harbor and Avalon exceeds the state's recommended maximum level for sodium (salt), according to test results released this week by the county Health Department Part of an ongoing study into what the department has called a "serious problem," the latest results were "in general, higher than the last couple samples," according to Clay Sutton, environmental program administrator. » Although the program calls for monthly sampling, it's been two months since the last sodium figures were released. The prior sample was taken on May 15-17, released in mid-June and appeared in the Herald and Lantern June 20 THE LATEST samples were taken June 28, six weeks after the prior one, and results received last week from the laboratory at Stockton State College. Sutton said the lab toqk longer than usual because it's on -"'an abbreviated schedule." Sutton said the two-month lapse in getting results was not important since "doc tors arc already on notice and we're looking at this long term " "We're right on target now," said county Health Officer Louis Lamanna who said the latest samples were taken July 26 and 27, one month after the June sample SUTTON REPORTED in February that lie had last year asked for equipment so the county can test the water samples for sodium and he expected the equipment by April It was supposed to cost about $2,000 (Page 18 Please)

Crest Haven Sewage Plant OK

CREST HAVEN — The county's Holmes Creek Treatment Plant is not above capacity after all. During all the recent fuss about the Middle Township Sewage Treatment Plant, which IS above capacity, some people began disparaging the county's plant, which serves the Crest Haven complex. Both discharge effluent into Crooked Creek and no one is ever sure which is responsible for that creek's reported contamination. County Health and Planning depart ments officials had conceded they were worried about their plant, especially about

its ability to handle the proposed new $9 2-million Crest Haven Nursing Home. THE PLANT HAS a 100,000-gallotB-per-day capacity and, they thought, a flow of 110,000 to 120,000 gallons. The Court House engineering firm of Van Note-Harvey was hired to study the plant, including rejwrted infiltration into its lines. + The firm's first recommendation was for the plant's flow meter to be calibrated It was, and found to be reading about 20 percent too high. ^ The latest readings, according toGeorge ( Page 51 Please >