Dive Brief:

• The Fenimore landfill in Roxbury, NJ is listed for sale via public notice on behalf of the Roxbury Collector of Taxes and Utilities.
• The troubled 103-acre site is listed at $578,980.05; the property is owned by Strategic Environmental Partners (SEP).
• The purchase isn't for the property outright; it's for the right to place a lien on the land and own the debt. If the outstanding payments owed aren’t taken care of within two years, the lienholder has the ability to begin foreclosure proceedings. 

Dive Insight:

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) seized the Fenimore from SEP in June 2013, under an emergency order.

SEP executive Rich Bernardi said the action was a “…maneuver by the township designed to take SEP’s property.” According to Bernardi, in 2012 the tax assessment for the property was about $500,000, but in 2013 Roxbury raised the tax fees to more than $11 million. He cited “political reasons” as the reason behind the increase. Bernardi no longer controls the site, which was acquired by SEP in 2010.

Bernardi said he expects the site to be bought by a state partner or contractor. He said the state wants the property due to the site’s “valuable solar-development rights.”

Christopher Raths, the Roxbury Township manager, said that the tax assessment increased because the landfill, in 2012, was a “non-income-producing property.” This changed in 2013 when the SEP began collecting tipping fees for construction and demolition waste discarded at the site, and the county increased the assessment to more than $11.6 million.