This smells

We drove into the SuperFresh lot on Lincoln Boulevard, a quick Saturday evening stop to pick up one item. Our car pulled into a parking space and we opened the doors. Then the odor hit us. Don’t know what it was or where it came from. It was horrendous, foul and easily noticeable. We thought – how do some people live with this?

Middlesex Borough was known as “Flowertown,” in long-ago decades, homage to Thomas Young Orchids and other blossom-growing greenhouses that were located here. Some moved out or closed in the 1970s when rising fuel costs killed off many greenhouses in cold weather winter locales. Now, the old nickname seems a cruel joke, given the problems with industrial odors that plague the town and a good number of its residents.

Several local businesses generate odors and various quality of life complaints from time to time. Lately, Spray-Tek is the one that’s drawn fire on Middlesex’s community Facebook pages. The Cedar Avenue company and the state agency supposedly charged with policing it took a hit at the Aug. 24 Borough Council meeting. 

Councilwoman Jennifer Clock told of her frustrations dealing with an odor from Spray-Tek and attempting to report the matter to the state Department of Environmental Protection. Clock, who lives near the company’s facility, said an awful smell seeped into her home one mid-August day that even an air conditioner could not remedy. A DEP rep seemed to doubt her during a phone conversation, and then no one showed up as expected to investigate Clock’s complaint.

The councilwoman distributed copies of local residents’ brutal social media comments to Mayor Jack Mikolajczyk and council colleagues. It’s important for the governing body to not be complacent in dealing with industrial odors, Clock asserted, even if mitigation successes have been elusive.

Mikolajczyk said the borough has been reaching out to the DEP, pushing for action. “We’ve done everything that we can do, short of going over there and pulling out the plug ourselves,” the mayor said. Interim Administrator Matt Geist and Deputy Administrator Len Vidal have been tasked with making the borough’s case to the state agency.

Vidal said he continually calls the DEP, noting that it has enforcement authority. He urged residents to continue calling the agency to lodge complaints and generate case numbers. More case numbers help the borough’s cause, he said. Spray-Tek, however, has been successful in maneuvering around past enforcement attempts. It remains to be seen if that will continue, despite Vidal’s willingness to tackle the long-running problem.

Spray-Tek opened its Middlesex facility in the early 1980s. It wasn’t long before the firm became the target of resident complaints, according to past issues of The Middlesex Chronicle. Nearby homeowners were upset by odors and noise emanating from the business. A February 1982 article told of an industrial hygienist investigating a high frequency noise generated by Spray-Tek. The noise could be heard two miles away at night. That’s right, it was 44 years ago. Ronald Reagan was president at the time.

The hygienist offered an explanation that’s likely been heard hundreds of times since then by beleaguered Middlesex homeowners. “He reported that residents had contacted the state asking for help,” the Chronicle reported, “but that the state has cut its staff and only one enforcement officer is available for the entire state. The borough has no noise abatement ordinance, he said.”

The hygienist and then-Mayor Ron Dobies both characterized Spray-Tek as accommodating in addressing the noise issue. Dobies told of mufflers being placed on its stacks and that the firm had been “very cooperative.” By the end of the decade, Spray-Tek was still making the front page. A small blurb noted a coming council work session to discuss “noise and odor problems at Spray-Tek.”

The firm has occasionally made news for its generosity to elected officials responsible for regulating it. A little money apparently goes a long way in buying good will in the minds of Spray-Tek executives. Perhaps that is what Dobies really meant when he said the firm is cooperative.

In 1998 and 1999, while Dobies was mayor, the firm donated to Middlesex Borough Democratic campaigns, according to state Election Law Enforcement Commission records. In June 2013, Spray-Tek’s chairman of the board contributed the max $2,600 to Democratic state Sen. Bob Smith’s campaign. At the time, Smith’s law firm just happened to serve as municipal attorney, advising the Borough Council. Smith was also chairman of the Senate Environment and Energy Committee, a post he still holds.

Just two months prior, the council had amended sections of the property maintenance code related to nuisance odors. It was crafted by a member of Smith’s firm. Most would say that’s a conflict of interest.

Spray-Tek has also been in the good graces of high-ranking Republicans. In 2017, during the administration of GOP Gov. Chris Christie, the state Economic Development Authority awarded the company a 10-year tax break with a total value of $1.1 million. The firm had threatened to move its New Jersey operations to Pennsylvania. Apparently, Spray-Tek’s prior record of odor complaints was not a tax cut disqualifier.

The firm has been a continual Board of Health topic over the years. If you scan the panel’s past minutes, there are ongoing mentions of contacting DEP officials, what is and isn’t policeable, and public encouragement to file odor complaints.

In 2013, then-Board of Health Chairman John Madden told colleagues of a discussion  local officials had with Spray-Tek’s chief executive officer two years earlier. The CEO offered a blunt assessment, placing the odor problem back at the feet of Middlesex officials. He stated that the governing body had allowed his firm to set up shop in a mixed-use zone, so you “can’t complain now.”

In September of 2013, Madden recused himself from discussion of all things Spray-Tek, telling fellow board members he had a conflict of interest. Madden’s water treatment company had recently done business with Spray-Tek. He resigned from the board a short time later. In his resignation letter, Madden hinted that politics might sometimes get in the way of the board’s work. He wrote of the need for board autonomy, cautioning against any “partisan influence.”

At another past meeting, a board member noted that Spray-Tek had hired an attorney who formerly advised the borough’s health board.

Spray-Tek, it seems, knows all the angles. It’s made past campaign donations to local candidates and the state senator who oversees environmental issues. It’s faulted the municipality for the firm’s own quality of life disturbances. It hired an attorney who formerly worked for the municipality its facility sits in.

Surprising Spray-Tek revelations have continued in more recent years. In February 2021, it was revealed that the firm’s sewer account had been inexplicably placed on the inactive list during the administration of disgraced Mayor Ron DiMura. Not paying sewer bills when the company should have been doing so? Gee, how could that have possibly happened?

The DEP has attempted to show some spine, fining Spray-Tek $239,700 in May 2025 for more than 120 alleged violations. But again, the company found at least a temporary reprieve by appealing the fines and seeking a hearing with a state Office of Administrative Law judge.

A look at the public record shows that Spray-Tek has become expert at gaming the system. That’s just as nauseating as the odors emitted from the company’s Middlesex Borough facility.

(Copyright 2026 Dave Polakiewicz. All Rights Reserved)

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