County Disputes Claims on Sewer Service Areas

If 33,000 acres once destined for sewers in Ocean County are eliminated from areas where sewers are allowed, is it really an increase in the area where development is encouraged?

Some environmentalists claim it is.

Ocean County officials accuse them of fuzzy math when they claim an additional 16,000 acres will be open to sewers and the development that could follow.

Planning Director David McKeon said the grinding of bureaucratic gears has fueled the dispute.

He explained it this way:

The state Department of Environmental Protection came up with a water quality plan that would remove 50,000 acres of land from areas previously proposed for sewering. Then the DEP sent the plan to county and local officials for fine tuning.

That fine tuning has found 16,000 acres that are either:

• Already sewered — 5,400 acres;
• Earmarked as Pinelands towns and villages where sewers are required — 2,300 acres;
• Are in need of sewers on the Joint Base — 800 acres;
• Or where the wrong data was used to define wetlands or other environmentally sensitive areas.

McKeon said the claim that the sewer service area is being expanded by 16,000 acres is “absolutely wrong,’’ because that area is shrinking by 33,000 acres.

The final numbers are “somewhat fluid,’’ and won’t be set until the end of the year, he said.

“Thirty-three thousand acres are coming out. That may grow,’’ insisted former Stafford Mayor Carl W. Block, who is now the county administrator.