Your Tax Dollars: 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.  State Department of Environmental Protection officials had cited the county to clean up the property in the past.  DiVincenzo said the county was paying $300,000 to $400,000 in clean-up costs in the 1990s because of the state DEP citations.

He attributed the previous clean-up problems to several issues, including  financial cutbacks, which resulted in a loss of manpower to do the work and improper maintenance of the site.

With the new partnership, 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 to the composting site they collect from the county's 20 parks. 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.