Action by County's Amendment Review Committee is Important to Holmdel

The Monmouth County Area-wide Water Quality Management Plan Amendment Review Committee may take action important to Holmdel Township at its next meeting, which is currently scheduled for the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 14. This Amendment Review Committee (ARC) is empowered to evaluate and make requested changes to portions of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection's new Area-wide Water Quality Management Plan for Monmouth County – particularly changes to the Sewer Service Area in each municipality.

The NJDEP has expanded Holmdel's Sewer Service Area to includes all portions of the 472 acre Alcatel-Lucent tract, as well as two other large tracts, in spite of a written request by Holmdel's Township Committee and a citizen protest petition campaign in 2011. Officials from Holmdel, Monmouth County and the NJDEP met on October 31, 2011 to discuss Holmdel's concerns. The Minutes for this meeting state it was agreed that if Holmdel would rezone this Alcatel-Lucent tract to be consistent with Holmdel's adopted Master Plan, then NJDEP would accept Holmdel's proposal to restrict the Sewer Service Area for this tract to only the footprints of the existing buildings. The Alcatel-Lucent Redevelopment Plan approved on May 17, 2012 satisfies this condition.

To date, however, Holmdel Township has neither presented its action approving the Alcatel-Lucent Redevelopment Plan to this Amendment Review Committee nor requested this ARC to make the agreed revision to the Sewer Service Area involving this tract. Even though no deadline for Holmdel's presentation on its compliant action is given in the Minutes for the officials' 10/31/2011 meeting, it is reasonable to expect some official communication from Holmdel Township to the ARC within a year of that meeting. Simply continuing to ignore the ARC may possibly result in the ARC's reluctance to approve this revision to Holmdel's Sewer Service Area due to the lack of timely communication from Holmdel Township.

It would be prudent for Holmdel Township to have official representation at the next meeting of Monmouth County's Amendment Review Committee.