Current Bordentown
JUNE 2019 FREE
Top 10 seniors make their marks
The 2018-19 school year is wrapping up, and this year’s Top 10 academic seniors at Bordentown Regional High School are looking ahead toward college as graduation approaches. Each student filled out a questionnaire about themselves, including information about their career plans, favorite Bordentown memories, extracurricular activities and teachers. The seniors will attend colleges such as Johns Hopkins University, Elon University, UPenn, University of Pittsburgh, Boston University and UCLA. They will study biomedical engineering, musical theater, finance, computer science, mathematics and political science on their way to prospective future careers like clinical pharmacists, engineers, finance directors and writers. During their time at Bordentown, this year’s Top 10 students were involved with clubs like Model UN, theater club, Future Business Leaders of America, debate and Teens of Fire, as well as extracurriculars like National Honor Society, baseball, field hockey and STEM for kids. The class of 2019’s graduation ceremony is set for Wednesday, June 19, 2019 at the Bordentown Regional High School Performing Arts Center, starting at 6 p.m. To read more about this year’s Top 10 students, turn to Page 8.
COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG
Elcon plant hits setback
Mellow yellow
By roB Anthes
Bordentown Regional Middle School hosted its annual color run fundraiser at the school May 11, 2019. Above, Julia Bender, Suzanna Dherbey and Paige Kerr douse each other with yellow color dust. For more photos, turn to Page 20. (Photos by Suzette J. Lucas.)
History blooms on garden tour By MicheLe ALPerin Patricia Reaney is especially excited the “hidden gardens” that people usually don’t get to see. “The charm is discovering the gardens behind the fences,” she says. One such garden belongs to Babette Bohanan, who moved to Bordentown in the 1960s when her father was transferred to New Jersey by the Colonial Pipeline Company. In 1994, after her divorce, she moved back to town with her two children “because I loved it. It is a town where you can walk down the street to get
coffee, do your banking, and go to the little parks, and I had friends already.” The garden in Bohanan’s backyard, which has evolved over time, will be part of the “History in Bloom” self-guided tour of gardens and other historic sites, Saturday, June 22, from noon to 5 p.m. Reaney, with her co-chair Rick Ellis has taken over planning the annual garden tour from the able hands of longtime chair Bonnie Goldman. Bohanan’s passion for gardening started with planting marigolds as a kid and has continued
throughout her life. Eventually she was able to create a patio and Japanese garden for a house her father had gutted and refurbished for the family. When she lived in apartments she “always planted flowers and maintained the little grounds around it, mulching and making it beautiful.” When she bought her house on Princeton Street in Bordentown in 1994, it had a six-foot fence that she didn’t like, a 40-foot pine tree, a shed, and a patio with bricks that didn’t match, but, she says, “I could envision what I could have.” So whenever an opportunity See BLOOM, Page 10
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection came out against an application for a proposed toxic waste treatment facility in Bucks County May 15, saying it had “a number of outstanding deficiencies.” PADEP’s Notice of Intent to Deny comes after completing a 10-month technical review of materials submitted by the applicant, Israel-based Elcon Recycling Services. Elcon wants to build a facility in Falls Township that would store and treat nearly 200,000 tons per year of hazardous and residual waste. This includes mercury, lead, cadmium, benzine, vinyl chloride and 260 other chemicals. “After a rigorous review of the application, supplemental materials submitted by the company, and input from the public, DEP will not approve this application in its current form,” PADEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell said in a statement. “Unless the company can address these outstanding deficiencies, DEP will have no choice but to move forward with a full application denial.” PADEP, in its statement, was careful to point out that a Notice of Intent to Deny is not a final decision by PADEP. Elcon still may submit materials to address the deficiencies cited by PADEP. But, with the review over, members of the public now also have an opportunity to go on the record. A public comment period begins June 1 and runs See ELCON, Page 6
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