Were residents of Pleasantville, NJ kept in the dark about a proposed construction debris transfer site?

By Frank Brill, EnviroPolitics Editor

Until the Atlantic County Utilities Authority (ACUA) cried foul, residents of Pleasantville, a small city outside Atlantic City, knew virtually nothing about a proposal by a local developer to build a facility to transfer construction and demolition debris from residential and commercial projects to rail cars for disposal at an Ohio landfill.

The ACUA would have lost the tipping fees they currently receive to process the material within the county, so they had a vested interest in raising a stink. And quite a ruckus have they raised in recent months with their ‘Stop the Dump’ campaign. It is designed to shine public attention on what they view as a behind-the-scenes agreement between the city, the county, and the developer, James DiNatale.

Two attempts by the ACUA to organize a public meeting at Zion Baptist Church last month failed to work out but St. Mary Episcopal Church hosted the gathering on Thursday night at which several residents expressed anger at the inability of Pleasantville political leaders to provide advance notice of what they were agreeing to in resolutions that made no mention of a construction debris facility.

“They don’t have a problem getting the word out when they’re looking for support at election time,” one resident said. The audience responded with applause.

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