Right next door

Colorful chunks burned on the C Street asphalt, sending off small but thick plumes of smoke – yellow, orange, red, even purple. We laughed and joked as children often do about something new and different.

The older kids had retrieved the chunks from some magical place “by the railroad tracks” and lit them on fire. They said the chunks were sulfur. Were they really sulfur, or was that just a catch-all term for flammable sort-of rocks? 

Nearly 60 years later, no one can say for certain. Our moms and dads didn’t discourage our street fun. This was late-1960s Middlesex Borough. It was a time and place without helicopter parents and modern-day environmental knowledge.

Roughly a half-dozen times I witnessed these burnings. Don’t know if I was I breathing in toxic substances released by the smoking material. The stuff we set aflame came from the nearby Middlesex industrial zone.

The rest of the borough has had an uneasy coexistence with the industrial zone through the years. Processing and manufacturing businesses were seemingly plopped there decades ago near the town’s southern border, along the railroad tracks. Residential neighborhoods and two high-rise complexes now sit not far away.

First-responders have periodically answered I-zone fire calls and hazardous material emergencies. The big one occurred in 1985 when a Lincoln Boulevard paint factory exploded, killing one person. The resulting four-hour fire sent black smoke billowing as far away as Interstate 287.

Recent years have brought more and more noise and odor disturbances from businesses willing to forego a “good neighbor” label. Affected homeowners are becoming increasingly ticked off. Sleepless nights, lack of peace and ruined family get-togethers will do that.

The question becomes – what happens going forward?

The mayor and Borough Council have heard a suggestion to impose strict operating hours on the entire zone. Would that reduce the amount of overall disturbance or just confine it to a certain timeframe?

The borough’s zoning enforcement office is in a transition period, to put it kindly. The town’s part-time zoning officer was given full-time status. He responded by resigning.

Some beleaguered homeowners might hold unreasonable hopes of one day shutting down all I-zone businesses and rezoning the area. That appears highly unlikely, if not impossible.

I-zone property and business owners would likely file lawsuits challenging the attempt. Even If the businesses somehow got shut down, many millions of dollars would likely be required to environmentally clean the zone.

There could be tax consequences, as well. The owner of 172-176 Baekeland Avenue – which houses Hikae Infotech and other businesses – paid $152,400 in 2024 property taxes, according to the municipal website. Pull that out of the revenue stream and see what happens to local tax bills. And that’s just one property owner.

The best attempt at restoring a sense of normalcy for residential neighbors might be the mentioned imposition of rigid operating hours. Adding an aggressive zoning officer, enacting tough anti-noise and odor ordinances, and constant consultation with Middlesex County and state environmental officials would be other necessary steps.

Would even a few I-zone businesses leave voluntarily and take their operations elsewhere if local restrictions were tough enough?

The long-running environmental issues recently brought to light at Hikae cry out that a hands-off attitude won’t do. Hikae is just one firm in the I-zone. It’s reasonable to wonder if problems exist at other sites and whether local officials have a full understanding of all the businesses located there.

There is much to know. Operations and enforcement often go on out of the public eye, according to the respective websites of the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)).

Spray-Tek, often the target of outrage for emitting industrial odors, received a sizable $239,700 fine from the DEP for two alleged violations, according to the agency’s site. The infractions allegedly occurred on Sept. 22, 2023 and March 23, 2022.

The fine was assessed for “release of an air contaminant” which “posed a potential threat to the public health,” according to the DEP. There are no details. The violation status is listed as pending, and the firm requested a hearing earlier this year.

Hikae was fined $30,000 in 2022 for discharging a pollutant into groundwater without a valid New Jersey Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. Three years earlier, the company was called into question by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA fined Hikae $11,565 for a workplace violation characterized as “serious, repeated.”

The EPA tracks the chemicals either released or disposed of by I-zone businesses, both on- and off-site. The 08846 zip code had hundreds of thousands of pounds of chemicals disposed of in 2023, the vast majority being lead compounds, according to the agency’s website.

The catalogued materials read like a Who’s Who of hazmat bad actors. There’s hexane, methanol, phenol, xylene, barium, toluene and others.

We didn’t worry about toluene, methanol or other toxic substances in my neighborhood six decades ago, but should have. Borough officials need a diligent, close eye on them going forward.

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