Yesterday:
$9.6 million Fenimore cleanup contract is 23 percent more than state estimated
ROXBURY — New Jersey has awarded a $9.6 million dollar contract to Conti Enterprises to cap the Fenimore landfill — about $1.8 million more than the state estimated the project would cost earlier this year.
The controversial project is meant to address Roxbury’s troubles with the site — which in late 2012 began spreading rotten egg-like smells for miles. The smells were blamed on hydrogen sulfide, generated by debris brought in by developer Strategic Environmental Partners as part of a state-approved plan to cap the site — a landfill that shut down in 1979 — and install a solar facility.
The state Department of Environmental Protection took over the site last summer, saying Strategic mismanaged the project — though Strategic and the state continue to litigate several aspects of their dispute over the site. The DEP installed a gas collection and burnoff system that has greatly diminished hydrogen sulfide emissions, but the cap Conti will install is meant as a more permanent solution.
The cap project awarded to Conti only covers the area where Strategic began its work — about 19 acres of the 65 acre landfill. Strategic’s project, halted when the state took over the site last year, was meant to eventually address the full landfill, which a 2005 state report identified as in need of remediation.
It’s also costlier than the DEP estimated in March, when officials came to Roxbury to make a public presentation about their capping plan — arguing it would be far cheaper and less problematic than removing debris Strategic brought into the site.
In that presentation, the DEP estimated the cost of installing its cap to be $7.8 million………………………………
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…………………………Last year, a Star-Ledger report drew attention to Conti’s political connections.
Days after the state hired Florida-based Ashbritt with a no-bid contract to remove superstorm Sandy Debris, AshBritt hired Conti, based in Edison, to help manage its efforts and identify local subcontractors. Conti hired Maggie Moran — a former top aide to Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine whose husband is the mayor of Belmar — to help develop a marketing campaign she said “educated stakeholders about what the state contract offered in terms of debris removal and cleanup.”
Moran’s role in has drawn attention to her personal ties in Belmar — which hired Ferreira Construction of Branchburg to clean debris days after the storm, before it too became an Ashbritt subcontractor. In addition to working for Conti, Moran is a longtime consultant for Ferriera Construction.
Moran has said she recused herself from any dealings Conti had with Belmar “to avoid even an appearance of impropriety.”
The Star-Ledger also found that over the last two decades, Conti donated $129,350 to Republicans in the state and $3,850 to Democrats, according to state Election Law Enforcement Commission records. Company executives have personally contributed an additional $55,250 to Republicans.
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