Development will damage Dismal Swamp, township

A politically connected developer wrote a letter to the Sentinel on June 18 ("Visco project will enhance Dismal Swamp") claiming that paving over a large chunk of the last substantial natural area in Edison will magically "enhance the Dismal Swamp."

While this absurdist claim is too laughable to even discuss, I am glad he brought up the question of the Visco project's impacts on "The Diz," as it is known to its thousands of visitors each year. By proposing to bulldoze more than 8 acres of healthy upland forest and wild meadow, the Visco development would:

•Significantly increase traffic problems in neighboring residential developments

•Increase flood damage to nearby residents by removing over 8 acres of flood control area

•Clear-cut ecologically sensitive Dismal Swamp habitat

•Directly impact nearby sites such as the township's proposed Regional Camp and Environmental Education Center, the Triple C Ranch, and the Middlesex Greenway Extension

•Destroy the home of many endangered and threatened species, including vesper sparrow, peregrine falcon, yellow-crowned night-heron, northern harrier, and American bittern

Improving the Dismal Swamp by paving over 8 acres is akin to improving your home by burning it down. The developer's claims of seeking to protect the environment are indeed rather hard to believe. Even the proposed "donation" of 5.5 acres is actually wetlands that cannot be legally developed anyway.

Such misleading propaganda is nothing new for this developer. The late family patriarch, Nicholas Visco, was convicted in 1992 for lying on a federal wetlands filling permit. The Visco family also owns the infamous Kemco toxic waste site in North Edison, a contaminated site that has discharged poisons unabated into the environment around the Inman Sports Club for over 20 years, posing potential threats to the health of any children who dare explore their local waterways.

Rather than give a handout to a less than reputable developer seeking to pave over our town's last great wildlife refuge, I urge the Edison Township Council to stop this project dead in its tracks by denying the access to townshipowned land that Visco needs to build here in the first place. The council should also request that the county freeholders purchase the Visco tract with open space funds. Most of the county's open space purchases have historically helped towns far from Edison, but the timing is right to save the Dismal Swamp.

Preserving the Visco site for our kids to enjoy nature - that's the real way to improve the Dismal Swamp.
Robert Spiegel
Edison Wetlands Association