Brick to Begin Negotiations on French's Landfill Solar Field

Township officials will begin negotiations next week with Standard Alternative, LLC, a potential developer for the former French's Landfill site.

The township plans to turn the former federal Superfund site into a solar energy field after it is finished being capped, but the process of choosing a developer to install the solar field has been a bumpy one.

Township officials that Pinelands Development would install a solar farm at the former landfill site and operate the facility for five years. The initial lease agreement called for Pinelands to own the solar panel system for five years, with the township having the option to purchase the operation at the end of the fifth year. If the township did not exercise its purchasing right, it would have continued to receive 20 percent of the profits of the energy generated at the site for the following 10 years.

But in July, the council voted to go out to bid , with officials saying the market changed since the previous fall and more companies would be interested in bidding. In September, the council rejected the sole bid they received – from Intra, Inc. – but authorized further negotiations.

On Tuesday night, Council President Brian DeLuca said negotiations with Standard Alternative, LLC, a company based in Hoboken, would begin next week, but the township will require $2.5 million up front for the project to get off the ground.

"We told them up front that if you can't put $2.5 million up, you probably would not be successful in this bid," DeLuca said.

Crews began placing the final cap on the site in August, allowing passersby to sneak a peak at the 42 acre tract, which has long been off-limits to the public.

In Dec. 2010, the township council authorized $14 million in bonds to fund a partial clearing of vegetation, installation of a federally-mandated landfill cap and gas ventilating system, construction of a storm water system, landscaping and the widening of Sally Ike Road fronting the site.The actual cap will end up costing $11.8 million, according to Business Administrator Scott Pezarras. It could have cost more than $45 million had the federal government capped the site on its own.

Pezarras has estimated that it could take 12 to 14 months from the start of the capping process for that phase of the project to be completed.