In 2002, the Port of New York/New Jersey began dredging the harbor to accommodate container-carrying ships which was expected to result in a doubling of import business during the next decade.
In anticipation of increased demand for warehouse and distribution space, Keystone Property Trust acquired Greenville Yards. The 26-acre brownfield is ideally located near the ports of Elizabeth and Newark, N.J., on the Hudson River. Garden State Engineering was hired to complete site design for two frozen food warehouses with 72 truck bays and new parking lots.
Addressing the problem
The project engineers faced many challenges, including the prohibition against removing the contaminated soil found on the site and the need for new drainage systems and maximized parking space.
In order to pipe water flow from Greenville Yards directly to the Hudson River, the New Jersey Department of Environment Protection (NJDEP) required treatment of site storm water runoff. The storm water treatment system had to be integrated into the site plan to maximize parking space.
Solution found
The engineers considered biological and physical treatment systems but because of the site constraints, the project engineers decided that a vault-style filtration system would be the most appropriate for this project.
The Stormwater Management StormFilter® from CONTECH Stormwater Solutions was chosen because it was the only manufactured storm water filtration system that had received a Conditional Interim Certification from the NJDEP.
The StormFilter is a flow-through filtration system. An underground concrete structure houses a siphon-actuated rechargeable filter cartridge that traps particulates and adsorbs pollutants.
Six precast StormFilter vaults, three CatchBasin StormFilters, and four StormGate high-flow bypasses were installed. A total of 166 cartridges were filled with media to target oil and grease, suspended solids, soluble metals and organics.
Physical site constraints were mitigated because the system was installed completely underground using minimal land area and allowed for a parking lot above.
"With 72 truck bays at the warehouses, the amount of truck traffic at the site will be considerable," explained Nicholas Agnoli of Garden State Engineering. "Having a storm water filtration system that can be installed completely underground was an excellent solution to the question of how much space we could allocate for parking and truck maneuvering."
Final certification
Final field verification by New Jersey Corporation for Advanced Technology (NJCAT) of the StormFilter was recevied in January, 2007. As a result of an extensive field evaluation per the TAPE/Tier II Protocol, NJDEP issued a Final Certification of the StormFilter in May 2007. The StormFilter is the first proprietary BMP to be evaluated per the TAPE/Tier II Protocol and is allowed as a stand-alone BMP in New Jersey.
