Asbury Park $500K contamination cleanup starts along Springwood Avenue

ASBURY PARK - City officials met with lawmakers Thursday at a longtime vacant, contaminated lot scheduled to be restored as part of a nationwide focus on revitalizing polluted urban properties.

The site is one of four in Asbury Park that will be cleaned up with $500,000 in spending on remediation through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Brownfields Program.

U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., who gathered with city and federal officials Thursday, said President Joe Biden signed bipartisan infrastructure spending in November that provides $1.5 billion in additional money for brownfields cleanup projects nationwide.

"This program is really essential to building back our country," said Janet McCabe, deputy administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The program is "focusing on communities that are have suffered the unfair burdens of pollution and brownfields for too long and have not gotten the resources and the attention that they deserve in order to create a truly equitable society, and to make sure that everybody in this country has clean land around them, clean water and clean air," she said. "That's what all people who live in this country deserve."

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Pallone said sites across the nation, such as those in Asbury Park, were polluted in communities where underserved residents or minority groups lacked the political power to stop toxic industries from moving in or to force the cleanup of what was left behind.

In the Springwood Avenue area of Asbury Park's west side, the four properties scheduled for cleanup were contaminated with chemicals, metals and volatile organic compounds over the 20th century, he said.

Across the state, another $6 million in cleanup funds will be distributed for properties in Perth Amboy, Atlantic City, Bridgeton, Jersey City, Millville, Paterson, Trenton, Hamilton and Camden. Once remediated, the properties can be used for residential housing, businesses or parks and recreation, Pallone said.

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The program "is so important to a community like Asbury Park," said City Councilwoman Yvonne Clayton. "Five hundred thousand dollars for remediation (here) means jobs. It means new homes and also means new businesses."

McCabe, of the Environmental Protection Agency, said that investing in urban pollution cleanup brings more local tax revenue, higher home values and new jobs to communities.

"Every dollar we spend in the Brownfields Program is a return of $20 … in terms of redevelopment," Pallone said.

Depending on the cost of each cleanup, Asbury Park officials plan to use the money to remediate four properties on Springwood Avenue and three adjoining lots on Ridge Avenue, city officials told the Asbury Park Press in May. All the lots are city owned and vacant.

Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers Brick, Barnegat and Lacey townships as well as the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than a decade. Reach her at @OglesbyAPP, aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.