Bridgewater on board to block medevac Township joins suit that aims to keep State Police helicopters from moving to Bedminster

December 8 , 2005

Bridgewater Township has joined in one of three lawsuits filed by a tri-town residents group waging a battle to stop a State Police flight facility from permanently relocating its operations to Bedminster next
year.

Bridgewater officials yesterday said the township had joined a suit filed by the residents group in October that challenges whether Bedminster's airport ordinance allows the use of helicopters like those operated by the State Police for medical emergencies.

A Bedminster zoning board interpretation of the ordinance this summer concluded helicopters are permitted.

"The citizens group felt the board of adjustment made a mistake, that the ordinance shouldn't include helicopters. Bridgewater agrees with that interpretation," said Edward Halpern, an attorney for the township.

Halpern insisted Bridgewater intervened in the suit on Nov. 18, out of concern over the operation of helicopters at Somerset Airport in neighboring Bedminster.

Northstar, the State Police medical helicopter program, in February moved its operations from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark to a temporary home in a trailer at the airport.

Ultimately, Halpern said, Bridgewater officials want to learn more about the impacts of the helicopter program's flights, which the residents' group has declared a noisy, pollution-spewing intrusion in the rural ambience of the three towns represented.

"I think Bridgewater is taking this matter as seriously as we do. They see that it has a tremendous impact on residents," said Alan Harwick, a township resident and lawyer who filed the October suit on behalf of the Bedminster, Bridgewater, Branchburg Concerned Citizens Coalition.

The coalition also is suing the township to reverse a special-use permit that now allows State Police pilots and UMDNJ medical crew the use of a temporary trailer for their operations at the airport.

Airport owner Daniel Walker has a planning board application pending to move the medical unit into a permanent home inside a hangar at the landing strip. A hearing to consider the plan is expected sometime early next year.

A third suit by the group claims the medical helicopter program, by state statute, must be a "hospital- based" program, and for that reason wants a judge to order UMDNJ to send it back to its original base at University Hospital in Newark.

Walker's firm, Somerset Air Service, is a plaintiff in all three suits. Walker's lawyer, William G. Mennen IV, said he was confident the suit Bridgewater joined would be tossed out next month, when a judge is expected to rule on a motion seeking to dismiss the case.

Mennen argued the airport's state Department of Transportation license supersedes limitations a municipality might try to place on a landing strip. "States have exclusive authority to license airports, and cover the activities at airports," Mennen said.

A state transportation spokesman said the department regulates landing strips and determines the kinds of aircraft allowed to use them.

The spokesman, Brendan Gill, said Somerset Airport is a "public use airport," which under state statute is allowed to have helicopter flights.

Bedminster Committeeman Kurt Joerger, a leading opponent of helicopter operations at the airport, said Mennen's motion to dismiss filed Nov. 30 is an attempt to "quash the residents and townships of the area."

Joerger said the relocation of the medical helicopter program from Newark to Bedminster paves the way for a full-fledged State Police base at the airport.

Mennen declined to respond.

Terrence Hoben, head of medical operations for the program, said he was "saddened" Bridgewater had joined the litigation.

"What's going on in the psyche of the people of Bridgewater?" he asked. "I'm really having trouble understanding and comprehending it."

Ralph R. Ortega may be reached at rortega@starledger.com or (908) 429-9925.

BY RALPH R. ORTEGA
Star-Ledger