Regulations to ensure that the Port of Paulsboro is both clean and beneficial to the borough and county have resulted in the city of Camden improving its own lot with regard to its port.
At a board meeting on Tuesday, the South Jersey Port Corporation passed a resolution that places strict environmental sanctions on the scrap industry. The agreement also guarantees that when the corporation enters into a new agreement, or renews an old one, with a municipality, it must pay the municipality 2 percent of the cost of construction of all buildings, and 1 percent of the value of all the land on the site. These payments are in addition to the base payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOTs.
The resolution says that Gloucester County will receive $150,000 as its annual base PILOT, and the borough will receive $500,000. According to Paulsboro Mayor and Assemblyman John Burzichelli, D-3, this, in addition to the 1 and 2 percent additional payments, should bring the borough upwards of $2 million or $3 million annually once the facility is fully operational.
According to Gloucester County Freeholder Director and State Sen. Stephen Sweeney, D-3, the resolution had to be passed before the county and the borough could go ahead with building the $150 million deepwater port here.
However, the resolution will affect all new agreements that the corporation enters into from now on -- including the PILOT agreement it renewed with the city of Camden, also on Tuesday.
Now, they do.
"My constituents are worried about their neighborhoods, about the quality of air that they breathe," said State Sen. Wayne Bryant, D-5. "This resolution tells them there is a future."
The corporation has operated the Port of Camden since 1969, according to Balzano, and from the beginning has been moving scrap for one of the largest dealers in the country, Camden Iron and Metal.
But the regulations imposed by Tuesday's resolution may not bode well for the scrap industry in South Jersey. The resolution mandates that all scrap operations conducted by the corporation be completely contained within enclosed buildings, ensuring that the operation would cause no sight, sound or air pollution. These measures will be extremely costly for scrap dealers.
"The scrap operators are going to look at the environmental standards here and will want to go somewhere else," said Sweeney, who, along with Burzichelli, has staunchly opposed inheriting Camden's scrap metal.
"Of course, if a scrap dealer were to decide that they want to make the multi-million-dollar investment to house such an operation here, that would become a very different discussion," said Burzichelli. "These regulations would mitigate all the negative impacts a scrap industry would have on the neighborhood, so if they managed to clear all those hurdles, I wouldn't be against them coming here. But they are significant hurdles to overcome, and that industry doesn't seem to have an interest in doing that."
In 2004, the Port of Camden exported over half a million tons of scrap metal for recycling all over the world, bringing in over $1.25 million through that operation alone.
Camden Iron and Metal's lease with the corporation expires in the fall of 2006, according to Balzano, though it have a five-year option. This means that Camden Iron and Metal could continue its operations as-is for a maximum of six years. After that, the company would either have to spend the millions so its operation would meet the new regulations, or move.
"It would be a challenge that the scrap people would have to take on if they wanted to stay in South Jersey," said Balzano. "Though I wouldn't say it's impossible. But, if these regulations do cause the industry to leave the Port of Camden, it would be our job to find something to replace it. Ports have to be compatible with their neighbors to exist nowadays -- well, these are the guidelines our neighbors have put forth and we have to live with that."
According to the newspaper report, in earlier interviews Bantivoglio has said that Paulsboro would not be a good location for his business. Bantivoglio has also said his company is considering moving its operations to Port Richmond in Philadelphia. Gloucester (New Jersey) Times