By Allison Perrine
FAIR HAVEN – Over 300 individuals have signed an online petition pleading for the borough to close its decades-old brush grinding operations, citing disruption in nearby residential neighborhoods.
The ask is simple – shutter the brush grinding facility in Fair Haven, located at the corner of Hendrickson Place and William Street – and have it removed and processed elsewhere. But the solution is much more complicated and costly, said Mayor Ben Lucarelli.
“We live in a bucolic beautiful area that generates a tremendous amount of brush,” he said. “It will always be there unless we can find another place we can relocate it to,” and if it is cost-effective and poses a small carbon footprint.
The site has been used largely for brush grinding since the 1980s. As part of the process, 18-wheeler trucks bring brush collected from the borough to the facility and then load it into an industrial grinder. Grinding occurs twice a year in the spring and fall for two weeks at a time. The site is also used as a work area for the borough and a place to store debris from roadwork.
For some time, the borough took in a large amount of Rumson’s brush, which was financially beneficial to Fair Haven, according to Lucarelli. However, the town has since significantly reduced the amount of brush taken in from Rumson due to the neighbors’ complaints.
The online petition was started by Fair Haven resident Jennifer Spitz, who lives adjacent to the brush grinding site on William Street. Her decision to file the petition comes about six years after her first complaint to the governing body about the noise and disruption in her home caused by the operations of the site, she said, adding that her family has had a “terrible” experience with it since they moved in.
“You can hear the grinder rumbling,” she said, and the trucks at the site emit a consistent beeping noise. “The frames on our wall are rattling.”
The petition also cites health concerns about noise and air pollution from the trucks, increased traffic and safety concerns, especially for children riding their bikes while passing trucks with dust and dirt kicking up. “You can see the dust cloud coming off the pile,” Spitz said. “We have our children contending with 18-wheelers loaded with mulch.”
Lucarelli said he understands the trucks are large and the borough can “probably work on that” and potentially bring in smaller trucks, but that could mean more trucks will need to travel up and down the road to bring the same amount of brush to the site, which could also cost more money. He said he has spoken with county and state leaders about different alternatives, one which is currently being reviewed by the borough’s brush committee.
The committee was established this past spring in response to the neighborhood’s complaints. One suggestion is to give green garbage cans to residents. Like black cans for garbage and blue cans for single-stream recycling, the green cans could be dispersed to residents so each household could chip their brush and put it to the curb. Some municipalities have done it in the state, but vendors told Lucarelli it’s expensive to do so. The brush committee continues to weigh its options.
Overall, Lucarelli said the borough has been working to find solutions for the residents, but at the same time noted that brush grinding is a necessity. He called the petition “a misinformation campaign employing social media and inflammatory language to distort the facts for a narrow self-centered agenda of a small group of people who live in the neighborhood.”
However, Spitz said she feels it’s a good sign that over 300 individuals have signed the petition. “It says a lot that people are looking at this.”
This article was originally published in the Sept. 17-23 edition of The Two River Times.
