Roxbury scolds Hercules developer for withholding info. Here's what town wants to know
ROXBURY — The presentation for Hartz Mountain Industry's planning board application to build 2.5-million square feet of warehouse space on the former Hercules munitions plant property, which began in early March, will carry over at least into next month.
On Wednesday, Hartz Mountain representatives continued to present their case to the planning board. But board members were more interested in the information they were not getting rather than what they did hear.
Asked why certain documents related to the ongoing remediation of the site had not been delivered, Hartz Mountain attorney Steven Mlenak said most of them were details for the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to study and beyond the purview of the planning board.
"We don't believe any of those documents that were requested are relevant to the proceedings and the proofs we need to provide," Mlenak said as the presentation for the Hartz Mountain application continued, consuming the entirety of a 2½-hour meeting.
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"Our position is that this is beyond the scope of what the board is able to review and deliberate over," he said of the document requests, which came from both the board and the nonprofit Raritan Headwaters Association.
"We have submitted an environmental impact statement. We have demonstrated and will demonstrate through further testimony satisfaction of that requirement of the ordinance. So it is our position that we don't want to go further down this rabbit hole of things that are irrelevant to the board's determination."
Board Chairman Charles Bautz, for one, was annoyed he did not receive a requested overlay document identifying the wells on the site.
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"Let me cut to the chase," Bautz said. "You're not providing any of the documents you said you would provide when we first started."
The property "has all sorts of history and is our largest tract of land," he said. "So don't just dismiss the public and this board. No one is trying to slow you up or stop you. We're just looking for valuable public information that you guys have. You're just dismissing it."
Even with its checkered history − which includes multiple fatal explosions while the plant was open — the Hercules property is one of the largest remaining tracts of buildable land in Morris County.
The factory on the 1,100-acre property opened in 1871 and closed in 1996. Hercules LLC is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of chemical manufacturer Ashland Global, which purchased the site in 2009.
Hartz Mountain plans to purchase more than 800 acres of the site to build a warehouse park near the north end of the tract.
A proposal to also build residential dwellings near the south end was removed from the current development application in April. More than 200 acres on the eastern ridge would be preserved as open space for the public, with hiking trails and an existing scenic duck pond.
Ashland is still responsible for remediating the remainder of the property for possible future redevelopment. Should the Hartz Mountain project gain approval, the warehouses would serve as a "cap" over a portion of the remediated land.
Site manager Ed Meeks, environmental cleanup expert Caryn Barnes and traffic engineer Dan Disario returned to the planning board Wednesday to continue their testimony on behalf of Hartz Mountain and answer questions.
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Roxbury Mayor Jim Rilee, who also sits on the board, said he was surprised the developer had not tested for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of chemicals known as PFAS that are used to make fluoropolymer coatings and other products. The chemicals are "everywhere," Rilee said, including in some Roxbury wells.
Barnes agreed the PFAS chemicals are "ubiquitous" in many areas, but her study of the Hercules tract gave no indication that such contamination would be there, so they did not test.
Meeks added that more than 15,000 core samples have been taken from the property and analyzed over the past two decades.
The Hartz Mountain application will continue at the board's meeting on July 19. Should the General Development Plan be approved, Hartz would then have to present a full site plan application.
William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com
Twitter: @wwesthoven
This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Roxbury NJ planning board wants Hercules redevelopment details
