County Hopes for Savings, New Revenue from Partnership

County officials hope a new public-private agreement for a composting facility in South Mountain Reservation will create nearly $500,000 in savings and new revenue.

Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. held a news conference Friday at the composting facility on South Orange Avenue just near Brookside Drive in Millburn to announce the agreement with S. Rotondi & Sons Inc. of Summit.

The company already has cleaned up the area, which DiVincenzo said had been a problem for the county to maintain. State Department of Environmental Protection officials had cited the county to clean up the property in the past. In the 1990s, he said, the county was paying $300,000-$400,000 to clean-up the site because of DEP citations.

The county executive attributed the past problems to a lack of proper maintenance and financial cutbacks that resulted in a loss of manpower to clean up the area.

But with the new agreement, he said those problems are gone. "This is a home run for Essex County," he said. "It has never looked this good."

Essex County Parks Department workers will bring leaves it collects from the county's 20 parks to the composting facility. Last year, workers collected 3,500 yards of leaves removed from county parks. County workers also will receive free mulch, wood chips and topsoil to be used throughout the parks.

But the facility is open to the public in addition to county officials. It will be open on Monday through Friday at 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays at 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. The public will be able to purchase recycled materials from the site. And it's also available to Essex County municipalities to use too.