Could the controversial Colts Neck Manor project contaminate local drinking water?

COLTS NECK — A group of neighbors and environmentalists say a plan to erect 360 apartments along Route 537 risks contaminating the drinking water of more than 300,000 Monmouth County residents.

Now the group is waiting to find out if the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection will approve a permit for the proposed "Colts Neck Manor" sewage treatment system, which is one of the last remaining hurdles standing in the way of construction.

The controversial project would build 180 one-bedroom apartments, 165 two-bedroom units and 15 three-bedrooms along Route 537 near Colts Neck High School and Five Point Park. Of those apartments, 72 would be for very low, low and moderate income renters. The apartments would be spread across 15 buildings, each three stories high, on the 39-acre parcel.

Colts Neck Manor also includes plans for a swimming pool, clubhouse, wastewater treatment facility and four pocket parks.

The project would partially satisfy the township's affordable housing obligation under New Jersey's Mount Laurel Doctrine, which requires each municipality in the state to provide its "fair share" of affordable housing.

Rose Ann Scotti, a former Colts Neck mayor, said the Manor project is a on a poor location for a high density housing development.

"The proposed wastewater treatment system… is a new treatment system that has only been used for much smaller developments," she said in a statement.

Developer Colts Neck Building Associates LLC is seeking a Treatment Works Approval permit from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for its proposed sewage facility. The Colts Neck Manor development would use what is known as an Amphidrome system for sewage, an underground system that treats and then releases wastewater into a dispersal field.

A report by TRC Companies, a Connecticut-based engineering and construction consulting company hired by neighbors to study the proposed system, found "major flaws" in Colts Neck Manor's sewage treatment plans.

The proposed system failed to account for "actual site conditions" and provided "completely unreliable projections," the report said.

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"In a failure of the system, this first stage is isolated from the rest of the system, but continues to be loaded by raw sewage and essentially becomes a giant holding tank," the TRC report said. "If the system cannot be repaired or restored in time, or the tanks pumped out, it will overflow raw sewage from manholes atop the tanks – on a rise above Yellow Brook, whose stream bed is less than 300 feet away."

Yellow Brook is a tributary of the Swimming River Reservoir, which provides drinking water to 335,000 Monmouth County residents.

Marianne Cucolo, one of the neighbors who helped hire TRC to review the sewage treatment plan, said she is trying to get the state Department of Environmental Protection to read the firm's report before it decides on issuing a permit.

"This report clearly shows that this is way too big a project for the site," she said. "We're not saying don't build it, but they really should cut it in half."

Colts Neck Manor's proposed sewage system, as it is designed, "still allows contaminants to move into the Yellow Brook," said Kip Cherry, conservation chair of the Sierra Club Central Jersey, an environmental organization.

"According to the permit (application), the wastewater system will still produce effluent that will contain fecal coliform (a type of intestinal bacteria)," Cherry said. "They are relying on a disposal system in the ground to take care of that problem, and we have big concerns about whether or not that's geologically possible."

The treatment system also would allow various chemicals found in sewage — PFAS from cookware and medications excreted in urine, for example — into the soil near Yellow Brook, Cherry said.

The issue has drawn attention and concern from nearly 2,400 nearby residents who signed a petition opposing the Colts Neck Manor project.

Permit application correspondence between the developer and state environmental department show the sewer treatment facility is being designed to process 71,250 gallons of wastewater each day. To treat that much sewage, the property will use "flow equalization, membrane filtration and ultra-violet disinfection" to treat the sewage and then disperse the treated wastewater into a 71,800-square foot dispersal field.

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According to Department of Environmental Protection documents, fecal coliform bacterial will remain in the treated material that then pumped into soil of the underground dispersal field. Dispersal fields, which are common in septic systems, serve to filter the wastewater before it combines with underground water, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"This (Colts Neck Manor sewage treatment) system is more complex and effective than a typical septic system since advanced wastewater treatment is being proposed to meet discharge limitations prior to disposal," state environmental officials wrote in the comments section of the developer's permit application for groundwater discharge. "The Department has determined that use of an advanced wastewater treatment system, such as an Amphidrome treatment system, is advantageous to the environment and public health and appropriate considering the size of the proposed facility."

Joshua Bauers, director of exclusionary zoning litigation for the Fair Share Housing Center, a New Jersey-based affordable housing advocacy organization, said the state environmental department has stringent rules protecting water from pollution and untreated sewage.

"It's important that all of the towns in New Jersey provide their fair share (of affordable housing)," Bauers said. "Towns are not allowed to use their zoning to exclude (lower income residents), and I think that's what Colts Neck has done for a very long time. They use the powers of zoning to keep out basically anything that's not a mansion or a McMansion."

To solve the housing crisis, more affordable homes need to be built, he said.

"This particular site (in Colts Neck) has been studied somewhat endlessly, and found to be a suitable site," Bauers said. "It's going to provide some much needed affordable housing that's going to be made available to New Jersey's working families. It's important that Colts Neck finally become part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

A spokesperson for the Department of Environmental Protection said that the TWA permit was still under review as of Monday.

Amanda Oglesby is an Ocean County native who covers education and the environment. She has worked for the Press for more than 15 years. Reach her at @OglesbyAPP, aoglesby@gannettnj.com or 732-557-5701.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Could the Colts Neck Manor project pollute local drinking water?