Construction
halts at Trenton school
Dirt problems to be checked at
other sites
Saturday, May 28, 2005 • BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL •
Star-Ledger Staff
Work on a new $28 million elementary
school in Trenton has been suspended following tests that
fill dirt used at the site was contaminated with petroleum
products, and state officials are checking for any similar
problems at other school construction sites.
The state Schools Construction Corp.
ordered work halted yesterday at the site of the new Martin
Luther King/Jefferson Elementary School, an 800-student
school on Trenton's north side that was scheduled to be
completed by September 2006.
The work stoppage was ordered after tests
revealed that soil used as fill for the half-built school
was improperly hardened with milled asphalt, a violation of
state environmental standards.
Turner Construction Co., the contractor
for the school, said the contaminated material was delivered
to the site by Tamco Materials Inc., a Pennsylvania firm
hired by a subcontractor.
Tamco was supposed to deliver concrete
products to the site to be mixed into the fill dirt. But
tests showed the soil instead contained ground-up asphalt,
which requires special state approval for use as fill
because it is contaminated with petroleum products and PCBs,
according to Joe Seebode, assistant commissioner for site
remediation and waste management at the Department of
Environmental Protection.
Seebode said that the state issued a
Notice of Violation to Turner yesterday, and that the
company has 15 days to propose a remediation plan for the
site.
"We're going to continue to investigate
this site," said Seebode, who said preliminary tests showed
the contamination to be minor.
At the same time, the state agency
overseeing the school project, the Schools Construction
Corp., is reviewing its records to see whether Tamco
delivered material to any other projects around the state,
said Gerald Murphy, chief operating officer of the
SCC.
Turner suggested that was the case,
saying in a statement that tests of the materials placed in
the Martin Luther King site will "dictate the need for any
further investigation of comparable material provided by
Tamco to other sites."
Murphy said he expected to have a full
list of sites where Tamco worked by Tuesday.
In the meantime, he said the corporation
is already working with the Attorney General's office to
modify SCC regulations so that in the future subcontractors,
like Tamco, will have to be certified and qualified by the
Schools Construction Corp. Currently, only companies hired
directly by the SCC and their immediate subcontractors are
required to be certified by the corporation.
Tamco, of Pipersville, Pa., is not
registered with the SCC. Tamco officials could not be
reached for comment yesterday. HC Constructors, the
Whitehouse Station firm that hired Tamco for the Trenton
job, did not respond to a message seeking
comment.
"All of these issues, including how this
particular contractor gets involved with the project without
having certification from the state, become questionable
now," said Assemblyman Craig Stanley (D-Essex), who is
planning a hearing next month on problems in the state's
$8.6 billion school building program. "That could be part of
the problem, that we have an uncertified contractor working
on these very important contracts."
Seebode said that if it turns out Tamco
delivered asphalt to the site when it was supposed to
deliver concrete, the firm could be liable for
sanctions.
The work stoppage at Martin Luther King
will delay the project by about six months, said
Murphy.
Dunstan McNichol covers state government issues. He may
be reached at dmcnichol@starledger.com or (609) 989-0341.
© 2005 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
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