\ V. Herald & Lantern 12 December *84 48 ; ■ _ ; ' . r* _

Custom Changes; Controversial Site

CREST HAVEN - When it opens in March, the county's new $8-million plant designed to convert sewer sludge into compost will actually cost close to $10 million, counting various professional fees. The land it sits on is the.subject of allega lions of bribery and kickbacks through a maze of front companies involving former ML' A chairman John Vinci and a company which helped draw up the MUA's requirements for the plant as consultants. PQA Engineering Co.. Inc. The Swiss manufacturer of the system. Purac. was required to make custom cfiange orders in combining two standard .systems-available, so that what the county got i> heralded by tbe manufacturer 6s a new generation model of sludge-compost plant. The $8 million is figured for construction • and equipment change orders. ANOTHER $114,500 is itemized for the cost of the portion of land the plant sits on. plus the follow ing charges •Design costs. $534,897 •Construction administration fees, con suliants fees and interim- financing, $496,857 •Other salaries and administrative costs. $390,237 . . •l>egal and financial consultants fees. $40,000 • Replacement/repair fund i bonds). $100,000 •Bond reserve fund, one year's escrow. $121,410 THESE CHARGES bring the plants total cost up to $9,797,901 But about $8 million of that comes from federal and state funds The county's Municipal Utilities Authority .will pay only $1,555,309 It will borrow that

The MUA's share, raised by floating bonds paying seven-and-a-half percent interest per year for 30 years. Will cost the county $131,690 a year in debt service • Yearly labor, power and other costs will bring the annual cost of operating the plant up to $587,073 a year. THE PLANT SITS on five acres of fenced-in land, part of a 93-acre tract along the northbound lanes of the Garden State Parkway. A sewage treatment plant will eventually be built near the compost plant. In connection with the MUA's purchase of the 93 acres in 1980. it was later found that: •The MUA paid $700,000 for the 93-acre tract, although it was appraised as having a value of only $407,000. •The sellers. William H. Tozour Jr. and David J Kerr, of TozourKerr Custom Builders Inc of Avalon. three years later formed a business partnership with John Vinci, who was chairman of the MUA at the time the land deal was struck. •Besides Vinci. Tozour and Kerr, the partnership. Magnolia Associates, included Court House Realtor Thomas J Repici and lawyer Frederick W. Schmidt •That partnership was formed in 1983. a year after the Now Jersey State Commission on Investigation found that a negotiator hand-picked by Vinci had acted as an appraiser for both Tozour and Kenas well as the MUA THE NEGOTIATOR. Roman Osadchuk. was indicted by the Cape May CountyGrand Jury for lying before the SCI hearing panel Vinci is currently awaiting trail on charges that he accepted kickbacks while he was head of the MUA That case, it is alleged by indictment, also involved PQA Engineering Co., Ine . which stands charged with briberyvand conspiracy. k v

In regard to PQA, the Swiss firm, Purac, which nolds patents on the design of the county's new sludge-compost plant, stated in a sales engineering brochure : "At an earlier stage of the project, the pfofessional consulting engineer. PQA Engineering Co.. made a thorough study of all the systems available on the market. This naturally included visits to Sweden and also to West Germany." The brochure continued: "The study made it evident that only vertical (biological) reactor composting could cope with the high requirements and stan-

dards set up by PQA and the client ( MUA ) for the process performance and the end » product. "Therefore, two "equal" systems were designed by PQA based on information from the two process suppliers The systems were the Taulmann/Weiss-and the ABtf-system " . The ABV system, based on biological reactor composting, was actually offered in Purac models in 1979. The TaulmanWeiss system predates that, and is basically a method of eliminating smelly, moist air in the sludge-to-compost process.

News Digest i From Page 45' * he said, adding that $10,000 a year will be saved in overtime labor costs '85 Water: $212 CAPE MAY — A household that uses an average of 10.000 gallons of water every three months will see its annual water and sewer bill rise from $152 in 1984 to $212 next year "It's a significant increase, and it's going to hurt a lot of people." said City Manager Fred Coldren. adding that half of the increase reflects higher charges by the county Municipal Utilities Authority Not affected are the city's rates to Lower Township. West Cape May. Cape MayPoint . and the Coast Guard station Cost of Lobbying COURT HOUSE - Middle Township stands to lose roughly $1 million a year in revenue should a state bill pass in Trenton to gradually reduce the gross receipts tax by some 50 percent. Mayor Michael Voll said Noting that the bill has 30 sponsors in the Jersey Assembly. Voll and the Township Committee voted Wednesday to pay $2,500 to a municipal lobby agency to help fight the measure, if it comes to a showdown That's $1,500 more than the township normally pays as its annual dues to the group \ew Well In Works AVALON MANOR — A portion of land at Leonards Lane and Avalon Boulevard is to be deeded to the community's water district for a new well building, the Middle Township Committee said last week. _ The land is currently considered road right-of-way by county and township engineers There is no need for the new well right now . because a series of triplex homes it would serve haven't been built yet. either, although zoning approval was granted last spring to a piece of marshland owned bv developer Fred Dixon. Maintenance Man OCEAN 1')tY - A $25J»0-a-year salarv is UPing offered to fill the job of />•

y maintence director of public buildings The listing appears in December's job opportunities bullentin published by the New Jersey Department of Civil Service The successful candidate will be in charge of all .municipally ow ned buildings, and must have five years' experience in maintenance and repair, including three years' supervisory experienct^Fhr deadline for applying is Dec 21 f Quits Two Boards COURT HOUSE — Rose Johnson, who wore two hats in Middle Township as a member of the zoning board and the planning board. Has submitted her resignation from both panels, saying her new career in real estate might cause a conflict in interest. She had previouslydisqualified herself from a zoning case involving a commercial radio station moving into a residential block. The property was listed by an agency Johnson was affiliated with. Resort Men Sentenced CAPE MAY — Reputed mobsters Antonio Gambino and Anthony Spatola, both 30 of Sewell Avenue, were sentenced in U.S. District Court, Newark, last week to 30 and 34 years in prison, respectively, and fined $50,000 each for heroin trafficking. Gambino reportedly tried to kill himself while in custody earlier this year His cousin, Rosario, 42, was sentenced to a 45-year term and fined $105,000. Rosario's brother-in-law and Cherry Hill neighbor. Erasmo, 37, got a 34-year sentence and $95,000 fine. More to Come NORTH WILDWOOD - More arrests are expected after raids here, in West Wildwood and Middle Township last week when local lawmen charged 16 people with drug, weapons and other offenses. Confiscated during the Tuesday night raids were cars, weapons, televisions and drugs, according to police. Except for a juvenile released to his parents, those arraigned Tuesday were being held then at the county jail in leiu of bail.

Sludge Plant Near Completion

(From Page 1) have been operating throughout the United States," he added * "THIS IS NOT a prototype plant (but) it is tbe first plant of this particular design in the world. Problems in Europe have been with mechanical load and unload. That's where the de&ign of this plant differs." Essentially, the biological process is the same Sludge is mixed with sawdust and earned by conveyors to heating chambers, where harmful bactena is destroyed. "We can do in 30 days what would take nature one year to do with a compost pile in your back yard." Cathcart said. The sawdust will come from timber mills in South Jersey and will cost about $25,000 to $30,000 a year. "Most of that cost will be trucking the sawdust in." Cathcart said. "WE WONT HAVE the problems they have in Philadelphia and Camden because we don't have the industrial wastes like mercury., lead anJ cadmium in our sludge, and ours will be fully composted, while theirs is not totally finished." Cathcart explained. "We expect it to price out ( for commercial sale) between peat moss and topsoil '' Thomas J Getz. who will be in charge of the plant when it begins full operations in March, explained where the sludge will •come from and how it will be brought to the plant. "Sludge will be trucked in here from wastewater treatment plants in Ocean City and Cape May. and eventually from two other treatment plants still to be constructed: One in Wildwood's Lower Region in Rio Grande at the site of an old fish factory. and another to be built next door to our compost plant here in Middle Township." AS FOR ODOR problems. "There will be an odor from the trucks bringing the sludge in." Cathcart said, "but not from the plant itself." except inside one of the sludge storage buildings where "you could lose your lunch." "It is a totally natural process We don't add any chemicals. When you get done, you have a relatively inert, peat-moss type material," Cathcart said.

All of the plant's motors and electrical switches will be computer-controlled. A video display terminal will show any malfunctions at the points of origin. "Jersey soil is poor to begin withr and that's why we see a market for This," Cathcart said "We'll be getting together with agricultural people to determine how we're going to market it." As the county's needs grow, so could the plant. "IT MAY NOT BE big enough for the month of August, but yes. it can be expanded." Cathcart said. "We have about five acres fenced in here that we're using, out of 20 acres altogether that was bought for $500,000 by the MUA from private individuals I think it was Tozour Kerr (Custom Builders Inc. of Avalon). I'm not sure." (see separate story i The plant s construction is virtually finished, except for piping and some mechanical work The concrete and steel structures are in place, including a tall, silo-like building, a network of giant screw conveyors, and the computer system. • "We expect to start paving the roadwa_ys in here next week and begin testing in January-," Cathcart said. "We're a couple of months behind schedule, but that's not unusual for a construction project of this size." The contractor is McElwee-Courbis Construction Co. Inc., Camden. The site is off Crest Haven Road near the Jersey Cape Racquet Club. WHEN COMPLETED, the plant will be able to process a capacity of 2,000 cubic meters of sludge in one shot, which is five times more than the biggest plant in West Germany, says the Swiss design company This particular system at Crest Haven is considered the most advanced to date by the company, which says it poses no environmental pollution problems, and should last for 50 years. Purac says there are 800 of its plants in more than 30 countries. A crew of its Swiss engineers are currently wdhring at the Cape May County site. "They 're going home for Christmas, and then they'll be coming back after the holidays." Cathcart said.

Despoiled Vacationland? \ II J .!_>» -LU. • ,j a

(From Paget) practices (or lack thereof) in Cape May County." He declined to name them. "My contacts are not going to go on the record," be said, "because they are fearful of reprisals. That is why they are using our organization. They have lived in the area for years and are very, very aware of the situation." LANARD APPEARED surprised that the Herald-Lantern was asking him for specifics since, tie said, his contacts were quoting Herald-Lantern articles to him. He said that the Herald-Lantern has reported, in the last six months, "salt water intrusion, wells drying up, and marked degradation of ocean water quality." The Herald-Lantern has reported salt water intrusion, has not reported wells drying up. Recreational water quality charts published here all summer indicated mostly clean water. Lanard also cited recent county MUA indictments and a grand jury- presentment critical of the Middle Township Sewerage D is tnct. Both -were reported in the Herald ' Lantern. LANARD SAID his sources were "using sort of the cover of a statewide environmental group because they fear actions that could be taken against them."

said thef Lobby 14-years-old and is an umbrella group for a number of environmentalist organizations. He defended his lack of specifics by saying his letter was to Hughey, not the news media. "I didn't write this for a newspaper article," he said. He said that "if Hughey wishes to get specific, we will. We hope to hear from Hughey and then we will bring in our contacts to meet with him or do it through intermediaries. Lanard said he hoped Hughey would launch "an investigation in the county." COUNTY PLANNING Director Elwood Jarmer, who also has been critical of the proposed nursing home, said he knew of no evidence to support Lanard's claims. "That's a grandiose statement," said Jarmer. "I can't address it unless I know what they're referring to. Our derisions are based on facts before us* and policies in the county comprehensive plan, not political considerations." A DEP addendum to its earlier CAFRA (Coastal Area Facilities Review Act) permit for the proposed nursing home has been promised before the county Planning Board's next meeting on Dec. 18. Jarmer told the Herald-Lantern Monday that the county board could withdraw its CAFRA appeal if the amended decision appears "reasonable," or continue with the appeal if it doesn't.