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Community Corner

It May Be a Dump, But It's Home

As superintendent of the Monmouth County Reclamation Center, Richard Throckmorton has zero commute but he also never leaves work.

Living at a landfill may not seem to be a win-win situation, but for Richard Throckmorton, and for Monmouth County, it works out very well.

The benefit for Throckmorton, superintendent of the Monmouth County Reclamation Center, is that he lives on 800-acres surrounded by a buffer and it’s rent-free. All he has to do is pay the utilities on the three-bedroom house that was built in the 1960s. And he had to furnish the house to make it his home.

He thinks of it as good news for himself and the residents and businesses that surround the landfill, located on Asbury Avenue in Tinton Falls, because if anything smells fishy, he is there to check it out.

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Throckmorton, 53, explained that the county had a number of dwellings on the site that they were thinking of demolishing, but decided it would be a good idea to put him in one of them.

“It’s not really unusual," said Throckmorton. "The Parks Department has about 30 or 40 of these houses for park rangers."

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Actually, it is a good situation for the county too, he said.

“It saves the county a lot of money by having me on site. I get a salary for a regular work week, but I’m on call 24/7.  I’m the first responder for everything: trouble, odors, fire watch.”

Last summer, there was a landfill fire that he was able to get to within five minutes. “I was able to keep the fire to a minimum with our own equipment.”

He explained that he has visited many landfills for his job, and has heard terrible stories about landfill fires that got out of control.

“A landfill fire can be horrendous. If it went unnoticed for even a little bit of time, it could have been a big problem.”

In addition to being on site in case of an emergency, he routinely investigates odor complaints.

“I go to the source of the call and determine if it is a landfill odor. If it is, I make adjustments or make a call.”

Actually, handling odor complaints is a big part of his job. According to the Reclamation Center Web site, their utmost concern is for the residents and businesses concerned by the condition of the air surrounding the landfill. Over $5 million has been spent to date on landfill gas controls, but the nature of the landfill operation can, on occasion, lead to odor problems. The major sources of odors are the gases from the decomposing trash, and from the fresh trash being delivered. A sophisticated gas collection system is added to each new disposal area as it is developed.

In addition to odor complaints, Throckmorton responds to all fire alarms. “They are usually malfunctions in the alarm system,” he said.

Throckmorton is also on call during weather emergencies. He said he was very busy during and after the big snow storm in late December. “We put a lot of equipment like front loaders all over the highways. We were called to help other towns. I’d never seen it so bad.”

Although Throckmorton has only one neighbor on his street, he does not feel isolated and he is very proud of the state-of-the-art operation that he manages. He explained that they collect landfill gases and turn them into energy that gets sold back to the power grid.

The regional landfill was opened in 1976 at Asbury Avenue and Shafto Road in Tinton Falls because of the borough’s central location and excellent road network. As the host community, Tinton Falls receives a ‘host community fee’ of over $2.4 million that directly offsets property taxes.

Throckmorton started working for the county 31 years ago as a mechanic for the Highway Department when he was around 22 years old and in 1984, he became assistant superintendent. Before moving to Tinton Falls, he lived in Freehold Borough where he grew up and was a fireman for 30 years.

As for odor complaints, residents are encouraged to try to identify the odors before they call. According to the county, not all odors are landfill related, so a description of weather conditions and nature of the odor will help to determine what caused the problem. They suggest that the caller use descriptive words to describe the unpleasant odors. Among them are sour/pungent, burnt rubber, ammonia, rotten eggs, manure/farm, fecal/sewer, sulfur, chlorine and fishy odors.

The telephone hotline for odor complaints is 732-922-2666.

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