SPRING LAKE HEIGHTS — The Spring Lake Heights mayor and council Monday received grant money, totaling about $124,000, to be used to fund several environmental cleanup projects within the borough.
The three grants were approved at the Monday, June 19 council meeting.
The first grant, totaling $14,941, is a “clean communities” grant. This Clean Community Program, which began in 1986, is funded through taxing “litter-generating products.”
According to the Clean Communities Program guidelines, the grant is intended to fund “litter pickup and removal, litter-related education and enforcement of litter related ordinances…[and] to abate graffiti.”
The second grant, which totals $12,860.58, is a “recycling tonnage” grant, which supplies funds for municipalities based on their amount of recycled material from the past year.
Due to the New Jersey Statewide Mandatory Source Separation and Recycling Act, passed in 1987, municipalities are required to send an annual Recycling Tonnage Report to the DEP.
Based on this report, the department then determines the amount of money to be granted to the municipality. “Under the current form of the act…the dollar amount of the tonnage grant monies [is restricted] to no more than $10 per ton,” meaning that municipalities can receive up to that amount per ton of recycled materials.
“While grant funds may be spent for any purpose except those specifically mentioned, it is highly recommended that the funds be placed in a dedicated trust fund to be used solely to promote recycling activities,” the application says.
The third grant, totaling $96,119.10, is a PA/SI/RI Grant from the New Jersey DEP Site Remediation Program, aimed at funding the cleanup of hazardous polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs] at 550 Ludlow Ave.
“PA/SI/RI” refers to three phases of hazardous material remediation: preliminary assessment [PA] is an evaluation of the extent of the danger posed by the site; site investigation [SI] involves chemical testing of the site’s air, water and land to determine the type of hazardous material; remedial investigation [RI] is the process of finding solutions, estimating remediation costs and treating contaminated property.
The property at 550 Ludlow Ave., which is now abandoned, used to be a fuel oil company known as Acme Oil, and contains tanks that potentially leaked harmful materials into the soil and groundwater.
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