By: Mike Deak, MyCentralJersey.com
June 21, 2023
The borough is applying for a nearly $1 million grant to continue the investigation of a contaminated abandoned factory site at the end of Cornell Boulevard in the southwestern corner of Somerville.
The Borough Council on June 19 approved applying for the $990,814 grant to demolish the former Color Technology building at 60 Cornell Blvd. and determine the extent of contamination on the site that borders NJ Transit’s Raritan Valley Line.
The grant would be funded from the Site Remediation Fund of the New Jersey Economic Development Authority.
Mayor Dennis Sullivan called the property, acquired by the borough through a property tax forfeiture, the “most contaminated site within our two square miles.”
The factory, which has been on the site since the 1930s, produced camouflage paint for the United States military in World War II, Sullivan said.
The grant is necessary so the board can determine the full extent of contamination on the property.
The site is “so compromised,” the mayor said, the building has to be removed “before they can investigate what’s beneath it.”
After that determination is made, Sullivan explained, the borough can then apply to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for another grant to clean up the site.
The study will find “how bad it is and how do we clean it up,” Sullivan said.
Because the municipality owns it, “it is the borough’s responsibility to clean it up,” Sullivan said.
Eventually, the mayor said, the property is being eyed as a passive park.
In 2014, Somerville received a DEP grant to perform a preliminary assessment and site investigation of the property.
Councilman Granville Brady said the news of applying for the new grant would be welcome news for the “long suffering” residents of Cornell Boulevard and Bell Avenue.
Email: mdeak@mycentraljersey.com