A Victory for the Forest

A Victory for the Forest

Wednesday, February 15, 2006 marked a new chapter in our struggle to preserve the rural lands of eastern South Brunswick when the Township Planning Board denied TC South Brunswick's application to build three warehouses adjacent to the Pigeon Swamp State Park.

While these lands will eventually be developed with an industrial project, this was not the time. Until the flooding issues are studied and resolved, we cannot afford to and pavement and buildings to these lands.

As it turned out, the developer had used the wrong calculations to create the stormwater management plan for this site. Both Freehold Soil Conservation and the DEP have changed some of the numerical factors used to determine how much water nature allows to run off these sites. This developer had used older factors. Essentially, what that means is that their proposed basins would not actually be designed to hold back enough water to truly decrease flooding as they claimed. All this, however, was discovered after the meeting was over. But, since it was discussed, it shed some doubt on the application and may well have helped defeat it.

There are new questions about the old warehouses as well. If our information proves to be true, we may well have found the key to stopping the flooding. More on that as the situation develops.

South Brunswick has taken a postive step for the EVA by establishing a task force to study drainage, traffic and development issues in the Eastern portion of the Township. EVA members have been asked to join. The task force will be meeting at the end of this month. We are hoping that at last our voices will be heard by Township government.

We will keep you updated.