DUMP CLEAN UP - LAKEWOOD HOLY BURIAL MESS

By ZACH PATBERG • TOMS RIVER BUREAU
•April 7, 2010LAKEWOOD —

For a decades-old custom, mass burials of religious artifacts may be a bit new whenit comes to legal clarity.Last week, following a rising tide of protests, the state Department of Environmental Protection ordered a site where thousands of trash bags full of sacred Jewish text and clothing were dumped to be cleaned up.

Because of the religious sensitivity,however, DEP is permitting the burial to occur as a temporary solution until it decides where and how to relocate it.

"Our long-term goal would be to have this material be disposed of at a proper location. We don't feel the current location is the proper location," said Wolf Skacel, DEP's assistant commissioner of compliance and enforcement. "In the interim, I think the safer option for the public and out of respect for the religious (needs), we've at least allowed him to cover it at this time."

Although there's no actual religious exemption, the agency is treading lightly, allowing, for now, a landfill that normally would take a county public hearing, inclusion into the county plans and a permit application to the DEP before being permitted. There's been no word yet on when or where the some 2,000 bags will be moved.

Rabbi Chaim Abadi, who organized the drop-off site during Passover, is expected to meet with DEP officials next week to discuss options.

"If we were insensitive to the religious side of it, it would appear that someone has created an illegal landfill," Skacel said in a phone interview today. "But once you understand the religious side, you just have to see where it would have the least amount of environmental impact."

The DEP did issue a warning April 1 for operating an illegal solid waste facility on the wooded property off Vermont Avenue."My question is where are these bags going to end up? Who is overseeing this? Who's the watchdog,"asked Mary Cipriano, 56, who lives on Albert Avenue near the site. "I don't want to see a replay of this next year."She will, according to Abadi. The rabbi has grown more frustrated over the past week as Lakewood residents continue to loudly condemn a practice that has been commonplace for years.

"Other towns don't want us, so we're stuck in Lakewood," Abadi said. "It's part of Jewish life to bury these religious items. People that don't like it don't have to stay here."Indeed, many businesses exist solely to transport and bury these items, called Shaimos, which Orthodox Jews are not allowed to discard by normal means.

One is described in the Jewish Press, a NewYork City weekly, as using three semi-trailers to haul, for a fee, the bags from Brooklyn homes to bury in Lakewood or upstate New York. Another company, Shaimos.org, advertizes a preaddressed Shaimos Box, which a customer can fill with Shaimos and mail to an address where it will then be buried. And yet any government regulatory structure is hard to find, on the local and state level.

Wolf said the Vermont Avenue site was unique because it was the first time the DEP was alerted to a burial outside a cemetery, where Shaimos are often allowed to be laid with the deceased. In Lakewood, contradicting information became the only constant on the issue.

Police Chief RobertLawson, for example, sent an e-mail last Thursday to township officials explaining that county and DEP officials "found that nothing inappropriate had been done" at the Vermont Avenue site. That same day, DEP issued its warning. Lawson also said a site plan was approved for the burial and that Abadi told him he had approval. But those at planning, engineering and zoning departments said they never heard of the project. Abadi said there was no site plan. He had simply discussed it with engineering, zoning and Lawson, he said. Lawson could not be reached for comment today. By now, the bags in the hole have been buried, Abadi said. He expects to plant grass there in thecoming days.

COMMENT:
SEEMS TO BE AN AWFUL LOT OF CONTROVERSY AS TO WHO SAID WHAT,
AND THE CLAIMS THAT THERE WAS A PERMIT BUT THERE WASN'T A PERMIT;
THE CHIEF KNEW, BUT HE DIDN'T KNOW, BECAUSE HE WAS GIVEN FALSE
INFORMATION. THE RABBI WHO WAS FINED, BUT NOT FINED, AND THE
TRASH WHICH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MOVED, BUT IS NOT SIMPLY BURIED
AND GRASS IS BEING PLANTED OVER IT.

I ALSO JUST LOVE THE ATTITUDE OF THE RABBI - HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT
THE COMMUNITIES OUTRAGE AND SHOCK OVER TONS OF TRASH BEING,
LITERALLY, SHIPPED IN FROM OTHER STATES, TO BE BURIED HERE IN
LAKEWOOD; WHY? BECAUSE NOBODY ELSE WANTS IT IN THEIR TOWN.
GEE, I WONDER WHY, RABBI!!!

SO IN THE END, DID WE REMOVE ALL OF THE MATERIAL WHICH IS NOT
BIODEGRADEABLE?!! DID WE ENSURE THAT THIS WILL NOT REPEAT ITSELF
COME NEXT PASSOVER?!!

I THINK NOT.

GOOD WORK, LAKEWOOD -

NOW, LETS HAVE EVERYONE ATTEND THE ILLEGAL ALIEN RALLY BEING
HELD IN LAKEWOOD THIS SATURDAY ON MADISON AVENUE - LAKEWOOD
IS, AFTER ALL, A VERY WELL KNOWN SANCTUARY CITY - KNOWN FROM
HERE ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND EVEN INTO OTHER COUNTRIES.

BEING THAT LAKEWOOD IS SO OVERPOPULATED AND SO OVERBUILT, I
HAVE TO WONDER, WHERE NEXT, FOLKS? WHICH DIRECTION ARE YOU
GOING TO HEAD NEXT? YOU'VE OUTGROWN LAKEWOOD - LOOK OUT JACKSON
IT'S C O M I N G !!!

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