DEP Wants More Tests, Info On 4,000-Home Heritage Minerals Plan

MANCHESTER, NJ — State officials are asking for more testing and updated information an application by Hovsons to build 4,000 homes on the Heritage Minerals site in Manchester.

In a delinquency letter dated Friday, DEP officials said there were a number of items that had to be addressed, including things that were highlighted during a public hearing Feb. 8 at Manchester Township High School, before the DEP would consider issuing a CAFRA permit for the project.

The Coastal Area Facilities Review Act governs proposals to build developments in environmentally sensitive areas of New Jersey. The Heritage Minerals site, which Hovsons has owned since 1984, lies along Route 70 and Route 37, and borders on Lakehurst and Berkeley Township. Of the 7,000-acre site, 3,000 acres are protected under the Pinelands Protection Area. The remaining 4,000 acres fall under CAFRA. Under a lawsuit settlement reached in 2004 between Hovsons, the township and the state Pinelands Commission, roughly 1,000 acres that already were disturbed were set aside for development. The agreement included approval for roughly 2,450 units.

In its letter, the DEP said Hovsons must submit a revised traffic impact and air quality study that takes into account the fact that the three intersections included in its original study all are within 150 meters of each other.

It also said the current set-up on the plans to use Colonial Drive South as a main access road for the proposed development will create traffic issues for students and staff coming and going at Manchester Township High School during the week and on Saturdays, when there are often sporting events. Colonial Drive South currently dead-ends at the back of the Manchester school property; the state said those issues would need to be addressed with the school district.

Also of concern is stormwater runoff mitigation and the potential existence of two breeds of snakes on the site: the northern pine snake, which is listed as threatened in New Jersey, and the corn snake, which is endangered in New Jersey. The DEP letter said biologists found evidence that both species could be within the development area, along with a wildflower called the sickle-leaved golden aster and a sedge-family plant called Knieskern's beaked-rush, which exists only in New Jersey. Spring emergence studies on the snakes, which burrow into dens and hibernate, were requested. A survey on the Knieskern's beaked-rush must be conducted as well, and the DEP said that must be done in August or September, which is the peak time for the plant.

The letter also said there were several things the state had directed Hovsons to change on its initial designs that had not been updated. Fencing specifications for the old mining pits, which will be used in the stormwater runoff plan, and details on proposed snake tunnels were cited.

The state also wants details about contamination on the site. At one point, 45 acres had contained low-level radioactive tailings left from the original mining operations in the 1970s. But in the summer of 2015, Mayor Kenneth Palmer said Hovsons was in the process of cleaning it up. The site was to be capped as part of the process. The DEP letter also referred to a leaking transformer pad. A Remedial Investigation Report that was supposed to be submitted in September 2017 still has not been submitted, the DEP letter said.

The letter said the Pinelands Commission is reviewing the application as well, and even if it is approved, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would place restrictions on the removal of shrubs and trees between April 1 and Aug. 31 of each year due to nesting migrating birds, the DEP said.

All of the items must be addressed before the application is deemed complete, the DEP said, and given the time frame specified for the beaked rush survey, that likely will not happen until October at the earliest.

Read the full letter below.

Heritage Minerals Deficiency Letter Post-Hearing by Karen Wall on Scribd

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