Brick MUA Has ‘Grave Concerns’ Over Asphalt Plant Expansion Near Drinking Water Intake

The Stavola asphalt plant, Brick, N.J., Fall 2025. (Photo: Shorebeat)

The Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority has publicly raised what they termed “grave concerns” over a plan to expand and modernize the Stavola Asphalt plant on Chambers Bridge Road, which backs up to the Metedeconk River – the source of the township’s drinking water.

In a statement issued this week by BTMUA Executive Director Christopher A. Theodos, the water-sewer authority said it is collectively “adamantly opposed” to the pending plan to create a new road network and erect new silos within the plant, which will allow it to produce more asphalt product. Stavola is now a subsidiary of Arcosa, based in Dallas, Tex.

“The applicant, a Texas-based company with no demonstrated long-term stake in our community, is asking the Brick Township Zoning Board of Adjustment to allow a major industrial redevelopment a mere half-mile upstream of the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority’s (BTMUA) surface water intake — critical infrastructure that supplies drinking water to over 100,000 residents,” Theodos wrote. “This intake feeds directly into a 16- million-gallon-per-day water treatment facility and the 860-million-gallon Brick Reservoir, which collectively provide approximately 70 percent of our region’s drinking water.”

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The plan before the board, which will be detailed further at a hearing scheduled for Wednesday, consists of demolishing most of the current plant which produces hot-mix “batch” asphalt, then replacing it with newer equipment. Much of the work centers on the road network within the site, which would see the current gravel pathways removed in favor of asphalt roads. The roads would be part of a total of 3.21 acres of “motor vehicle surface.” Additionally, the company would build 3,369 square feet of new buildings, including an administrative suite, truck scale and other features. As it currently exists, much of the materials at the site are laid out in exposed piles, which would be eliminated in favor of six storage silos that would stand 50-feet tall, with an eave of 75-feet, necessitating one of the primary variances requested under the application since a height of just 26-feet is permitted. The silos would allow for the storage of about 600 tons of asphalt. The improvements in efficiency would allow Stavola to produce more asphalt in significantly shorter time periods.

According to the environmental impact statement, requested by Shorebeat prior to the meeting, the expansion of the plant would incorporate above-ground infiltration basins into the layout of the facility for stormwater management. Above-ground stormwater would be “collected by the proposed conveyance system and routed to an above-ground infiltration basin” where it would ultimately be “released at a controlled rate through an outlet control structure” and flow to the existing stormwater basin “and ultimately to the Metedeconk River via overland flow.” Likewise, several subdrainage areas would also flow toward the river.

The Stavola asphalt plant, Brick, N.J., Fall 2025. (Photo: Shorebeat)

“Allowing a reconstructed asphalt facility—an operation with inherent risks of toxic runoff, hazardous material discharge, accidental spills, and stormwater contamination and a long history of environmental violations —to operate only 400 feet from the riverbank is an invitation for catastrophe,” Theodos said in his statement. “No engineering assurances, containment plans, or promised safety protocols can eliminate the reality of industrial failure, human error, or storm-driven flooding. Once contamination enters the Metedeconk River, the damage would be swift, far-reaching, and potentially irreversible.”

According to BTMUA officials, Brick Township adopted its first zoning ordinance in 1948, which was replaced in 1953 with an ordinance prohibiting all industrial uses and rezoning the Stavola property for residential use only. Township records, they contend, show no application or approval was ever granted to construct or operate an asphalt plant on the site. Despite this, the plant was built in 1954 to supply asphalt for the Garden State Parkway and has operated “in continuous violation of the zoning ordinance since its construction.”

Not only does the BTMUA oppose the expansion project, the agency feels the entire site should be shut down and remediated by its current owner.

The Stavola asphalt plant, Brick, N.J., Fall 2025. (Photo: Shorebeat)

The Stavola asphalt plant, Brick, N.J., Fall 2025. (Photo: Shorebeat)

Similar projects have been proposed at the asphalt plant before, the most significant of which resulted in a denial by the board in 2005. Stavola – then an independent company – sued the township but ultimately lost, with the court upholding the board’s decision. On several occasions over the following 20 years, plans have been revived, and on all occasions have been met with objections by the BTMUA. The utility has hired noted land use attorney Edward Liston, who specializes in objections to development projects, to represent them at the hearing.

Approval of the plant’s expansion “would gamble with the drinking water of more than 100,000 residents and set a dangerous precedent—signaling that environmentally sensitive areas, particularly those adjacent to critical drinking water infrastructure, are acceptable sites for high-risk industrial redevelopment,” Theodos said.

The meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 4 at the township municipal complex – coincidentally, just next door to the plant on Chambers Bridge Road. The board is also scheduled to take up two unrelated hearings at the same meeting.