Gloucester County Stormwater Management Program Capital Facilities

On September 9th, the GCIA escrow closed with the New Jersey Environmental Infrastructure Trust to obtain funds for capital construction and equipment purchases on behalf of the County Stormwater Program and county municipalities. This funding provides for construction of five regional deicing facilities including salt storage sheds with front-end loaders and two regional vehicle wash facilities and for the purchase of two street sweepers and two GPS dataloggers. The five regional deicing facilities and salt storage sheds are proposed in Mantua, Woolwich, West Deptford, Washington and Franklin. These sheds will be available for salt storage and loading salt trucks from the surrounding municipalities and the County's highway department on a cooperative basis. The vehicle washing facilities are proposed for construction at the County's Public Works facility in Clayton and at the Mantua deicing location for use by all of the county's municipalities.

The county stormwater program evaluated salt storage and deicing techniques used in each municipality and by the county highway department. Many existing salt storage facilities do not comply with the new stormwater regulations and potentially discharge stored salt to groundwater and/or surface water. The locations for the salt sheds and vehicle wash facilities were evaluated using a number of criteria including the lack of an existing compliant salt storage facility, proximity to other towns in a similar situations, adequate staffing levels for loading neighboring municipal vehicles, availability of municipal land appropriate for this purpose and a location that will assist with county highway deicing during a storm. GCIA consultants and staff met with all of the municipalities to gather information in an effort to account for nuances and to address the specific needs of the municipalities that expressed interest in the salt storage program.

Furthermore, the county has incorporated at each of these facilities brine and liquid calcium chloride storage and application systems to reduce the amount of fugitive, ineffective and potentially harmful rock salt released into the environment.

It is proposed that the Mantua salt storage shed will be available to serve Pitman, Wenonah and all or a portion of Woodbury Heights, as well as portions of other municipalities that adjoin and wish to use this facility. The Woolwich salt storage shed would be available to serve South Harrison, Swedesboro and all or a portion of Harrison, as well as portions of other municipalities that adjoin and wish to use this facility. The West Deptford salt storage shed would be available to serve Woodbury, National Park, Westville and Paulsboro, as well as portions of other municipalities that adjoin and wish to use this facility. The salt storage shed in Washington Township would serve that municipality, as well as portions of other municipalities that adjoin and wish to use this facility. The salt storage shed in Franklin Township would also serve Newfield. Each of these facilities will be available for service to the County Highway Department, as it deices roadways throughout the entire countywide region.

The two vehicle wash facilities, located in Clayton and Mantua, will be available to wash municipal and county vehicles from all county municipalities. The vehicle wash facilities are designed to recycle water and to capture pollutants in wash waters for discharge to wastewater treatment. These facilities will eliminate the discharge of vehicle wash waters to storm sewers and streams. This will reduce the discharge of many contaminants including suspended solids, hydrocarbons, detergents and metals.

The County Stormwater Program includes a coordinated street sweeping program that is using the county stormwater GIS to identify municipal streets and county highways that now require sweeping on a monthly basis. The county stormwater program will purchase two street sweepers to meet the increased street sweeping needs of both the county highway department and municipalities, especially those municipalities that did not previously have street sweepers. Pollutant reductions in total suspended solids, floatable solids and pathogen levels will result.

For the most part, municipal stormwater systems are not well documented. This poses a significant operation and maintenance challenge. The County�s stormwater program will purchase two handheld GPS dataloggers that will be available for municipalities to use in locating, inventorying and GIS mapping of their stormwater systems.