Superfund cleanup stands beside Old Bridge’s new beachfront community center

OLD BRIDGE – Plans to construct a new multipurpose community building along the Laurence Harbor beachfront and clean up an adjacent Superfund site are moving forward.

Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., joined Mayor Owen Henry, Township Council members and other officials at the site Wednesday to unveil conceptual plans for the new Laurence Harbor Community Building.

Pallone has secured $2.25 million in a federal money to partially pay for the project, which was initially estimated to cost about $5.1 million.

Henry said the project is a "great beginning of even greater things to come" for the neighborhood.

"We need a lot of help in this area, Congressman," Henry said. "You know we have the Superfund site on this waterfront and if you look out this door, we have the greatest view of the city of New York that exists on the Raritan Bay."

But, Henry said, between the people of Old Bridge and that view is a fence that protects the public from the lead contamination in the Superfund site.

"We need to get that cleaned up, and we can't do that ourselves," the mayor said. "That help has to come from the federal government."

The federal government has the means to get that cleaned up and then and only then will the township have a Laurence Harbor that will prosper, Henry said.

Pallone said the community building project "fit perfectly into what we were trying to accomplish and put into the appropriations bill."

Laurence Harbor has its own identity and should have its own community center, Pallone said.

Pallone also gave an update on the cleanup at the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site.

In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to take over the design of plans to clean up the Superfund site on the Old Bridge and Sayreville border.

A portion of the Laurence Harbor beachfront has been closed for years because of lead contamination. The seawall and the jetty were constructed in the 1970s with slag, an industrial byproduct containing lead, manufactured at the Perth Amboy factory of National Lead, now NL Industries.

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In 2007, the state Department of Environmental Protect discovered contamination along the seawall and notified the EPA in June 2008. Six years later, the EPA ordered NL Industries to remediate the site, based on the finding that the company had manufactured the slag that was causing the contamination.

The EPA says that completion of the remedial design is anticipated by May, Pallone said.

"And they do plan to actually start the remediation, we hope, this year – sometime by the end of the year," he said.

"I can't guarantee it, but we've been pushing really to get this design done and to actually start the remediation," Pallone said.

Nicole Shapiro, the township's director of community development in charge of the community center project, said the original building, there since the 1970s, has been programmed to its limits.

The building also has been used as a library with the Laurence Harbor library building out of commission, she said.

She said the two-story, 6,000-square-foot building's interior will have an open space design, so the township will be able to take full advantage of the space for programming.

The bottom floor will have bathrooms and a full kitchen. The second floor will have bathrooms, office space and meeting room space. There also will be an outside patio area, she said.

"Right now we're writing a request for proposal for final design," she said. "Within the next month, we will be getting responses on our proposal for final design to bring us to the construction phase, and hopefully this time next year or even in the fall time period, we're hoping to break ground on construction."

During the design phase, public meetings will be held.

Email: sloyer@gannettnj.com

Susan Loyer covers Middlesex County and more for MyCentralJersey.com. To get unlimited access to her work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Old Bridge: Laurence Harbor community center plans advancing