Grassy Sound Sewer Link Causes Stir

COURT HOUSE – Middle Township Committee voted April 3 for a $2.2-million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to complete a project that will link the Grassy Sound community to the township’s sanitary sewer system. 
The resolution states “there exists a need within the township to finance the cost of connecting the Grassy Sound neighborhood to the public sewer system.”
The need referred to in the resolution has long existed.
In 2002, the state Department of Environmental Protection issued an order compelling the development of a sanitary sewer line from the community to a municipal sewer system. 
Initially, this was envisioned as a connection to North Wildwood but was later changed to Middle Township.
Local Sewage Management
Grassy Sound has been populated since before the turn of the 20th century. The area was part of a development of the first rail lines into Anglesea and the opening up of Five Mile Island.
Wrestling with development and the lack of a sewer system, the community of Grassy Sound constructed its own mechanisms for dealing with sewage through the use of temporary holding tanks whose contents are trucked to an offsite wastewater treatment facility.
In 1991, the Village of Grassy Sound Civil Association was formed. One of the organization’s major goals was the financing and construction of a sewage collection system.
The DEP Administrative Consent Order in 2002 was amended in 2013 and further clarified in 2015. The community’s very existence was threatened by the lack of a sewer system and connection to the Cape May County Municipal Utility Authority.
Litigation
A long process of solving the sanitary sewer problem in the community seems to show victory close. Yet, within the community litigation has broken out involving the Civic Association and property owners who are not part of the association.
How do those property owners gain entrance to the association and thus participation in the sewer system? Are they being arbitrarily barred from membership due to “personality issues” involving association officials?
Does the township have a role to play in resolving the conflict in a manner that will allow for maximum benefit from the sewer system connection?
These questions came to the floor at the April 3 meeting, but the committee did not engage.
Committee member Timothy Donohue, who has had the longest continuous involvement with the issue among the current members, argued that the township needed to stay out of the litigation.
“Our task is to bring the connection line to a certain point,” he said. Getting involved in the internal struggle on the Grassy Sound side of that connection point risked delays to the overall project.
“We don’t want to get involved with court injunctions or anything like that,” he said.
The committee has taken a position that completing the main connection line is the paramount goal. For the township, resolving other issues should follow the achievement of that goal.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.