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SEPTEMBER 2019
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COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG
Down the drain Sewer dispute leads Hamilton to file $2.8M lawsuit against Robbinsville
By RoB Anthes
ranthes@communitynews.org Hamilton Township has filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Robbinsville, the latest twist in a months-long saga surrounding the regional sewer authority shared by the municipalities. Hamilton announced the litigation Aug. 26, one week after Hamilton Mayor Kelly Yaede’s
administration came under fire for appearing to backtrack on a study to analyze the finances of the township sewer department. The Aug. 20 announcement that Hamilton would not agree to an independent sewer rate study shocked involved parties in Hamilton and Robbinsville, and raised questions about why the administration would not want it. These questions were the “final straw,” Hamilton Township business administrator Dave Kenny said in a township press release. The lawsuit filed with Mercer County Superior Court seeks $2.8 million from Robbinsville, an amount the Yaede admin-
istration says its neighbor has not paid for increased usage of Hamilton’s sewer system. For months, Yaede has claimed that Robbinsville owes Hamilton’s sewer utility a seven-figure sum, but has been inconsistent in the exact amount, recently increasing the debt from $1 million to $2.8 million. She said in an interview with the Robbinsville Advance Aug. 22 that Robbinsville’s usage of the system has increased, from 15.9 percent in 2016 to 19 percent thus far in 2019. Fried said he has seen spreadsheets and press releases claiming his township owes Hamilton See SEWER, Page 10
Can this be recycled? Most residents don’t know the answer, and that’s causing soaring costs By MicheLe ALPeRin
Oliver Douglas sports his new firefighter helmet and firefighter boots during National Night Out Aug. 6, 2019 at the Robbinsville police station. For more photos, turn to Page 14. (Photo by Suzette J. Lucas.)
Since 1987, New Jersey state law has mandated recycling, but Mercer County residents can’t seem to figure out what is recyclable and what isn’t. The result has been increasingly contaminated containers and huge increases in recycling costs. The issue is statewide, and local towns are no exception. According to Chris Rupp, director of public works for Robbinsville Township, the town’s recycling costs “have doubled from $125,000 per
year to $250,000 per year.” Dan Napoleon, director of environmental programs at the Mercer County Improvement Authority, says that the cost per household per year now averages around $29, which generates large bills in populous towns. The major change on the recycling scene, says Frank Fiumefreddo of Solterra Recycling Solutions, is that “the quality of the material we were shipping overseas had gotten to a point that it was unacceptable.” As a result, in 2018, China lowered the minimum allowable percentage of contamination in recycling, throwing the entire recycling industry into crisis. Solterra is the contracted hauler for curbside recycling in Robbinsville and towns served by the Mercer County Improvement
Authority, including Hamilton. “They went from maybe five percent, and the new standard was they would not accept any material with greater than onehalf of one percent contamination,” Napoleon says. “We saw a 40 percent increase in collection costs as a result.” Because the biggest contributors to contamination of the recycling stream are plastic bags and pizza boxes, Robbinsville and the Mercer County Improvement Authority are focusing on them in campaigns to reeducate consumers on the how-to’s of recycling. Plastic bags and any items inside them go directly into the trash at the processing plant. “It could be 100 percent clean recycling, but it is not opened See RECYCLING, Page 8
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