Resident seeks testing of Melrose air quality
Boro officials are asked for help amid environmental concerns
BY JOHN DUNPHY
Staff Writer

Charles Lukie, of Oak Street in Sayreville, shows the dying leaves of a tree in his front yard yesterday. He has expressed concern that a nearby sewage treatment plant could be having an impact on the health of the environment and residents of his neighborhood.

Something is killing the trees in one Sayreville neighborhood.And at least one man has expressed the concern that the problems could be more serious than dying vegetation.

Charles Lukie, a resident of Oak Street in the Melrose section, last week presented the Borough Council with not only his fears about the environment, but with several samples plucked from dying trees in and around his neighborhood to back up his claims.

PHOTOSBY MIGUEL JUAREZ staff

“If you were to go down to lower Main Street and just look at the trees, their tops are yellowish, like they’re chemically burnt,” he said. “The ones in the middle of the median have no leaves. They’re sticks.”

Lukie, an area resident for 35 years, said he believes the sewage treatment plant operated by the Middlesex County Utilities Authority on Main Street Extension, just across the Garden State Parkway from the neighborhood, could be the problem. Odors in the air, he said, force him and other residents to keep their windows closed at night. He noted that his eyes burn some mornings when he leaves his house.

Lukie went on to state his fear that the air quality is affecting more than the trees. He said eight area residents have died in recent years, though it is not known if those deaths, related to cancer, had anything to do with the environment.

“It would be nice to open the windows in the morning and not have this terrible odor,” he said. “That’s been going on ever since they got into the [sewage plant] business, but now it’s to the point where it’s life-threatening.”

Tony Ciciatello, a representative for the MCUA, said he has never received any complaints like Lukie’s.

“These kinds of accusations are just large,” he said. “Some of these sewage treatment plants are right in the neighborhood. This one is nowhere near the neighborhood.”

Ciciatello said that to his knowledge, none of the odors that have escaped the facility have any cancer-causing properties, and he noted that everything used in the wastewater treatment process is well contained.

“The water moves through a process and very little of it gets into the open air,” he said, citing the MCUA’s need to treat an average of 115 million gallons of water a day.

“It’s not that harmful. You’re dealing with human waste, so there are smells.”

Ciciatello said the MCUA’s presence in the area has been a benefit to the community since it was formed in the 1950s, as it eventually brought an end to the discharge of waste into the Raritan River.

“The MCUA has been a mover in cleaning up the river to the point you actually have shell-fishing going on,” he said.

“This plant is pretty isolated,” Ciciatello added. “Yes, there is [Faith Fellowship Ministries, on Main Street Extension], but even that’s not that close. If there are smells, they would dissipate very quickly.”

Council President Frank Makransky said he could recall some complaints about the odors coming from the sewage treatment plant nearly 15 years ago. He said this was around the time the facility was completely switching over from sewage dumping to wastewater treatment.

“But I haven’t heard anything recently,” he said. “This is the first time in a while I’ve heard anybody complain about that.”

Regardless of whether the sewage treatment plant is even partly to blame, Lukie said he would like to see air samples conducted in the area to figure out what is causing the dying trees and what he considers a high cancer rate.

Ciciatello said the MCUA would not be against testing, should there be a need.

“We have a good relationship with the community,” he said. “If there was a need for an air sample, we’d do it.”

Borough Business Administrator Jeffry Bertrand said he has spoken with the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on the matter. He said Edward Choromanski, the DEP’s air compliance and enforcement program administrator, would be speaking with Lukie to provide information on how to initiate complaints to the DEP.

The administrator acknowledged that he, too, observed an odor in the area.

“I passed by there around 8, 8:30 [Sunday night],” he said. “It was pretty bad.”

Lukie said he and others have had to deal with odors in the area for years, but he wants an investigation into whether the problems go beyond offending the senses.

“You see neighbors passing away and you wonder what’s happening,” he said. “It’s strange that eight people in this close a proximity could die from almost the same thing.”