State DEP To Partner With Berkeley To Determine Extent Of Beachwood Shopping Center Contamination

by Patricia A. Miller

Tthe state Department of Environmental Protection is working with Berkeley Township to complete a full environment assessment of the Beachwood Shopping Center on Route 9 South in Bayville, a DEP spokesman said.

“The first phase of the environmental portion of the project is to identify all areas of environmental concern and develop a plan to investigate these areas for contamination,” said Bob Considine. ”We awarded a grant of $12,500 through DEP’s Hazardous Discharge Site Remediation Fund to complete the assessment and planning work.

Municipalities can request up to $3 million a year to do assessment and investigation work at ”brownfields” site like the Beachwood Shopping Center, Considine said.

“We do anticipate additional funding requests from the township to complete the environmental investigation work,” he said. ”We’re looking forward to working with Berkeley on the environmental evaluation of the property. We know the mayor and the township are eager to have the property cleaned up and redeveloped.”

The site is being prepared for demolition, after decades of efforts by various township administrations to get rid of the eyesore.

There was an environmental study done years back by owner Priscilla Oughton and then-redeveloper Donato D’Onofrio. But it was a private study and the results have never been publicly released.

The site is listed on the EPA’s Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability System (CERCLIS). A preliminary assessment on the site was done in 1992. The private study by Oughton and D’Onofrio was also done.

Soil samples taken at the site in the past detected base neutral compounds, benzene, total petroleum hydrocarbons and metals, Mayor Carmen F. Amato Jr. has said.

“Based on the available information, additional site investigation work is required to clearly identify and define what areas of the site are impacted,” Amato has said.

The property is listed on the CERCLIS site as South Brunswick Asphalt. Oughton’s father - the late James R. Johnson - owned South Brunswick Asphalt and built the shopping center back in the 1960s. He used the area behind the site for his asphalt operations.