Sewaren recreational pier dead in the water
Too many obstacles to build pier at Alvin P. Williams County Park
BY PATRICIA A. MILLER
Staff Writer

WOODBRIDGE - The Middlesex County Board of Freeholders recently decided to shelve plans to build a recreational pier in Sewaren because of economic and environmental concerns.

"I reluctantly recommend to the board that this project be abandoned until such time as circumstances should change to make the project more cost-effective," Freeholder Director David B. Crabiel said at the Sept. 21 board meeting.

The pier plans were severely limited by a number of issues, including the security of the nearby Public Service Electric & Gas (PSE&G) generating station, wetlands protection and environmental problems, county Administrator Walter A. DeAngelo said.

The decision ended several years of study to determine if the project was feasible. It began back in 2003, when the late Woodbridge Mayor Frank G. Pelzman approached Crabiel about the possibility of the county building the pier at the Alvin P. Williams County Park.

The board paid Maser Consulting, Red Bank, $97,444 to conduct a feasibility study.

The park is built on a peninsula, surrounded by water from the Arthur Kill and Smith Creek. It is also surrounded by a fenced-in, 50- to 100-foot protected wetlands buffer. The buffer prevents park visitors from gaining direct access to the Arthur Kill, DeAngelo said.

State Sen. and interim Mayor Joseph H. Vitale said he was "somewhat disappointed" but understood the environmental and economic concerns had made the pier an impossibility.

"Freeholder Crabiel has been

excellent in terms of trying to identify some other ways the county can help recreationally at the park," he said.

Woodbridge will "go to plan B," Vitale said.

The township owns the Sewaren marina near the park. Vitale plans to ask the county to fund bathroom facilities for the marina.

Pelzman lobbied for a recreational pier that would make it easier for visitors to enjoy the view and possibly to fish, despite the wetlands buffer. Crabiel agreed with the idea.

Fishing would have been allowed, but not encouraged. Both the state Department of Environmental Protection and the New York State Health Department issued health advisories on the amount of fish that could be caught in the Arthur Kill and eaten, De Angelo said.

The first blow to the project came in 2004, when PSE&G turned down the county's request to use the old pier pilings on PSE&G's Sewaren property for a pedestrian walkway.

The Sewaren facility is a "critical infrastructure" with generating equipment, electrical transmission and distribution towers, pole lines and gas distribution lines, PSE&G wrote in a letter to Ralph G. Albanir, the county parks and recreation director.

Security at the Sewaren facility was "stepped up tremendously" after Sept. 11, 2001, said Robert L. Gibbs, PSE&G's manager of corporate properties in the letter.

"... The security of such critical infrastructure would be put at risk if the general public were allowed to access the pier site," Gibbs said in the letter.

The Coast Guard had navigational and safety concerns about the pier. The mooring or launching of boats was considered to be dangerous in that part of the Arthur Kill, according to Maser's final feasibility study.

Maser came up with three configurations for the pier, but the price tags ranged from $563,000 to $1,189,000, DeAngelo said.

"None of the configurations were ideal to encourage people just to be able to enjoy the view of the Arthur Kill," he said. "The prices of all three were not ideal. They were all very expensive."

Even the cheapest pier configuration, a straight line, would not have been feasible because of traffic-control problems, DeAngelo said.

"The board felt that given the limitations and the price, it probably was not feasible to proceed at this time," he said.