WOODBINE — Little stands out about the lot on the corner of Dehirsch and Adams avenues.
Until recently, it was an open grass field. Today, the site of the former Woodbine Hat Co. serves as a gravel parking area, with several delivery trucks from the nearby Sea Isle Ice Co. lined up inside a chain link fence topped with lengths of barbed wire.
Earlier this month, the United States Department of Agriculture approved a grant of $999,770 to cover the cost of the remediation and help address soil contamination at the site, possibly by next year.
From the surface, it’s another former industrial site in a rural town full of former industrial sites. This one falls in the shadow of a blue water tower, bristling with cell phone antennas and emblazoned with the words “Woodbine: Gateway to the Jersey Cape.”
That water tower and the municipal well at its base are part of the reason the federal government has decided to spend close to $1 million to clean up decades-old contamination in the soil.
According to longtime Mayor William Pikolycky, the project will protect drinking water and finally clear the way to redevelop the property. He said the demand for brick-and-mortar sites is down, but he still hopes to return the property to the tax rolls.
“It’s about a three-acre site,” he said. “We hope it will be more than a parking lot.”
The USDA money was authorized under the Emergency Community Water Assistance grants, aimed at responding to emergency threats to drinking water. Qualifying emergencies include earthquakes, storms, chemical spills or disease outbreaks.
According to Pikolycky, there was no indication of a problem with the municipal water supply, which covers most residents in the area.
“Our well is 180 feet deep,” he said.
“The well is OK. But we want to make sure it’s OK,” said Joe Russo, the licensed site remediation professional who will oversee the cleanup. “Right now, there’s no imminent threat to the public.”
He said he is excited about the project.
The full extent of the contamination is still being evaluated. According to Pikolycky, PCBs have been found on the property, a common contaminate in industrial areas. According to Russo, there are also underground tanks that will likely be removed, along with contaminated soil at the site.
There are some residents of the borough that rely on residential wells, which are not dug as deep. The borough has been searching for ways to address the soil contamination for some time, he said, so that it would not become a problem in the future.
Earlier this year, the state Department of Environmental Protection gave the borough $69,583 to investigate the contamination at the site.
Pikolycky was enthused about the USDA grant, because there is no local match, a boon to a cash-strapped municipality. He said the borough recently applied for the grant, and he was surprised at the turnaround.
He hopes to see the work underway soon and completed within a year. A team is working on obtaining the needed permits, he said.
“This project, in conjunction with other projects (the) USDA has already funded in the borough, will improve the water quality for Woodbine’s residents, and most importantly protect the water source for future generations.” said Michael Thulen, the New Jersey director for rural development for the USDA, as quoted in a prepared release.
The borough is surrounded by woods, marsh and the expansive Belleplain State Forest, and there are several farms within the municipality. But it was Woodbine’s industrial past that led to the contamination. According to Pikolycky, Dehirsch Avenue was once lined with factories, part of the borough’s extraordinary history as a planned community.
Founded in 1891 as a haven for Jews from Eastern Europe fleeing persecution, with funding from railroad tycoon Baron DeHirsch, the town was cleared from the surrounding woods around the same time beach resorts were being developed on Cape May County’s barrier islands. Woodbine was a center for education, agriculture and industry in the early 20th century, including the Woodbine Hat Co. that once stood on the property near Adams Avenue.
“We had several factories at one time, making clothing, baby clothes, rubber, the hat factory, a tape factory and a toy factory,” Pikolycky said. “This was a thriving area.”
The grid layout created when the town was built is still in use, he said.
Most of those factories are long gone, including the hat company, which dates from 1918. The site was later home to a rubber and adhesives plant that operated into the 1960s. In the 1980s, the old factory burned down and the borough eventually acquired the land over back taxes.
Today, the only manufacturing that takes place on that stretch is in the Sea Isle Ice building. There is also a uniform distribution center and some retail markets, including a Family Dollar and the Woodbine Meat Market.
There are few businesses in the borough, but Pikolycky does not accept the idea that the town is struggling, describing it instead as a blue-collar community. He pointed out that it is home to the sprawling Woodbine Developmental Center, one of Cape May County’s largest employers. There’s also an airport and a new traffic circle has been installed where Dehirsch intersects Route 610 just outside of town.
The property will still be zoned for industry when the cleanup is completed, Pikolycky said.
“This much-needed grant will go a long way in ensuring that our community is protected from the potential of contamination, and that we all have continued access to clean drinking water,” said U.S. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-2nd. “I would also like to thank the USDA for moving so quickly to recognize this issue and rectifying it immediately.”
