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Controversy still swirls around Medevac plan Hangar conversion plan doesn't placate opponents
Change Of Direction 'Vigorous' Opposition Saving Lives Many Ways No Expansion Plans
November 23, 2005
BEDMINSTER TWP. - Somerset Airport owner Daniel Walker may have dropped plans to construct a new office-hangar complex for the NorthSTAR Medevac helicopter, but he hasn't quelled controversy about the rescue chopper's relocation to Bedminster.
One day after Walker filed an application seeking to convert an existing airport hangar for use as a Medevac administrative building, a spokesman for an opposition group was anything but pleased.
Alan Harwick, head of the Bedminster Branchburg Bridgewater Concerned Citizens Coalition (BBBCCC), said last Friday he believes the new proposal was designed to circumvent public discussion on the underlying question of whether the NorthSTAR program should be permanently relocated from Newark to Bedminster.
"The airport is seemingly trying to do an end run" by proposing a hangar conversion instead of new construction, said Harwick. Fewer township approvals are required under the latest proposal.
The new Medevac plans were filed in town hall during the workday on Thursday, Nov. 17. A few hours later that evening, the Board of Health approved plans for a septic system to serve the proposed facility.
The Planning Board has not yet scheduled a public hearing on the hangar conversion proposal.
A conceptual plan presented to the planners in August 2004 envisioned a large, new Medevac office/hangar complex being built at the northern end of the 200-acre property, apart from existing airport facilities.
At the time, critics complained that the proposal would require the cutting of more than four acres of woods and would intensify the use of the airport property.
In filing the hangar conversion plan, Walker said he was trying to be sensitive to neighboring property owners.
"We're not going to go for an office complex or hangar complex on the north side of the runway like we originally proposed," said Walker on Friday.
"Bearing in mind the concerns of the board and neighbors, we're proposing to put offices in an existing hangar next to where the Medevac helicopter is currently housed," he added. "That way, we don't increase lot coverage, we don't increase anything that would cause us to have a tougher time than necessary before the Planning Board."
Plans call for interior renovations to an existing 5,840-square-foot hangar, located immediately to the east of the hangar where the Medevac chopper is kept. Partitions would be built to create entrance vestibules, four offices, a kitchenette, an open area and two rest rooms with showers.
According to the documents, the airport is seeking a site plan waiver to make the hangar improvements. In the alternative, it will seek site plan approval, a longer and more involved process.
Harwick said he is "absolutely" opposed to the site plan waiver request, as it would bypass the necessity of formal public hearings.
"I would hope the Planning Board would not even consider a site plan waiver," said Harwick. "We will vigorously oppose any site plan waiver on this. There is just too much of an impact on the area and on the environment."
Harwick said that when Somerset Airport applied for a special use permit for a temporary office trailer for Medevac, critics did not get a chance to comment on whether the relocation to Bedminster is warranted or desirable.
According to Harwick, opponents were told that they would get their chance to discuss the merits of the relocation once a permanent Medevac facility is sought on the airport property.
He said the BBBCCC is counting on being allowed to prove that Medevac is not living up to its claim to be a "life saving" service.
"They were not up-front with the population or the government," Harwick charged. He said the mission of Medevac appears to have shifted since the helicopter service opened its temporary facility at the airport on Feb. 4.
Harwick explained that his preliminary analysis of flight data indicates that only about a third of Medevac flights during July, August and September involved transporting injured or critically ill patients to trauma hospitals.
"The percentage of medical flights is going down, while police, homeland security and the police search portions of these flights is going up," he claimed.
Terry Hoben, air medical coordinator for NorthSTAR, confirmed that the helicopter flies non-Medevac calls, but noted that they are part of the overall mission of helping people and saving lives.
For example, he said, two weeks ago the NorthSTAR helicopter transported a New Jersey patient to a New York City hospital for an organ transplant, avoiding bridge and tunnel gridlock.
A month earlier, Hoben said, the chopper was used to rescue people trapped on an island in the Delaware River when floodwaters washed out a bridge.
The Medevac helicopter is also occasionally called upon to help out in "Amber Alert" child abduction cases.
"If there's an Amber Alert and the car is on Routes 78 or 80, they'll dispatch us because we can get there more quickly," said Hoben, explaining that the State Police law enforcement helicopters are based in Trenton.
Hoben said Medevac has also been called upon to assist with homeland security. "After the bombings in London," he said, "there was a request for us to help with the surveillance of transit lines."
Hoben believes all of these functions are legitimate uses of the NorthSTAR helicopter.
"Sometimes the fireman's not always used to put out the fire," Hoben said. "Sometimes the fireman gets the cat out of the tree.
"In the days we're living in, we're an asset that can be utilized under the State Police table of organization," Hoben added. "But our primary mission is and has been Medevac."
Lt. Jack McKevitt, who is in charge of helicopters operations for the State Police in Trenton, said there are no plans to base more than one helicopter in Bedminster.
Despite a 2004 article in "Air Beat" magazine saying the State Police want to base a patrol helicopter next to each Medevac helicopter, McKevitt said it won't happen because of state budgetary constraints.
"We don't have the helicopters, and we don't have the pilots," he said. McKevitt added that there's no money in the State Police budget for any new choppers, which cost $12 million each.
The BBBCCC has filed three lawsuits attempting to block the permanent relocation of Medevac to Bedminster.
One challenges the legality of the special use permit process that allowed the temporary office trailer, the second claims that state law requires the Medevac helicopter to be hospital based, and the third seeks to overturn a Board of Adjustment interpretation that helicopters may be based at Somerset Airport despite a township ordinance defining the facility as a place for "fixed wing aircraft."
By SANDY STUART
Staff Writer |
