Planning Board Approves GEMS for Redevelopment

Development on the Gloucester Environmental Management Services, or GEMS, Superfund site moved one step closer to becoming a reality Tuesday when the Township Planning Board unanimously approved a resolution declaring the property as one in need of redevelopment.

Elected officials have expressed a desire in recent months to have a private developer lease or buy land in order to install solar panels on the GEMS property, which is located at Hickstown and Erial roads in the township's Erial section.

"The ultimate goal for the township is to have some solar provider or some means to provide solar energy on the landfill site to use that brownsfield for something other than just being a landfill," township engineer John Cantwell told the Planning Board during a presentation Tuesday night.

The solar company, or independent power producer, would sell energy back to the power grid.

Officials have repeatedly indicated in recent months that they have been informed by experts that solar panels can be installed without pentetrating "the cap" that confines toxic materials on the GEMS site.

Cantwell, of Haddonfield firm Remington & Vernick, told the Planning Board that roughly 58 acres of land on the 131-acre property is not "capped," while the remaining 73 acres is covered with trash from the property's days as a landfill and is "capped."

"You can't construct anything that is going to pierce the cap," he said.

It is expected the Township Council will accept the Planning Board's recommendation that GEMS be declared a redevelopment area and then establish a redevelopment entity to steer the future direction of the property.

"That will likely be the Council itself, but that's not been determined," Cantwell said.

The redevelopment entity would craft a plan for the property.

That redevelopment plan would go before the Planning Board for review and public comment before the redevelopment entity—again, presumably Council—would consider it for adoption as an ordinance, Cantwell said.

The township owns the Superfund site, which Cantwell acknowledged during Tuesday's meeting is "one of the five worst in the country."

Under a similar proposal for the Owens Corning Superfund site on Somerdale Road, the prospective developer, California-based Project Navigator Ltd., would enter into a 20-year, $1.89 million lease and also provide low-cost energy to nearby Chews Elementary School.

The seven board members who attended Tuesday's meeting and voted to approve the resolution were chariman Andrew Kricun, Jack Dunn, Antonio Guevara, Michael Jones, Linda Musser, Edward Pearce and Josie Washington.

Dunn and Musser had several questions regarding the seemingly eminent solar project and its impact on remediation efforts on the property.

"I don't think that anything that would happen in terms of what the Planning Board is doing tonight, or even in future redevelopment, would in any way inhibit the ability of the (GEMS) trustees to do what they have to do, which is remediate that site," Planning Board Solicitor Edward Brennan said.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Protection would have to sign off on any future development on the GEMS property.