While many New Jersey towns are struggling to replenish their supplies of rock salt, which have been depleted by the numerous winter storms, West Windsor isn’t one of them. Why? Because one of the township’s council members has the “right stuff” — specifically, the right identification to get the job done.
During the first week of February, Council member George Borek overheard Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh and business administrator Marlena Schmid say that the township’s division of public works (DPW) was running out of salt to treat roadways. Borek asked if he could help. The response: only if you have a TWIC card. In fact, Borek does have a TWIC card and he quickly went to work.
Said Borek, “A TWIC card is short-hand for ‘transit worker identification credentials’ and is only given to individuals whose jobs require them to have access to port areas. Because of my position as a Jersey City firefighter who worked on the fireboat, I was issued a TWIC card so that I could get into secure areas during fires and other emergencies. My card is current; I was recently recertified. Not every police officer, fire fighter, or DPW employee has one; they are only issued to those who need them.”
To help the township obtain salt Borek has driven with DPW employees for more than 22 hours over a period of four days to the docks at Morrisville, Pennsylvania, where ships have been unloading rock salt.
“We knew where the supply of salt was being kept,” said Borek, “and, since I have the necessary credentials, we decided to take the DPW trucks to go pick it up, because none of it is being delivered. We made four trips a day, driving two trucks each trip, for four days. We haven’t had a delivery of salt in quite a while, since before the last storm, so we were really scraping the bottom of the barrel, literally, for salt. We also saved the township money, because otherwise it would have had to hire a private contractor with a TWIC card to pick up the salt.”
Borek and DPW employees have delivered 150 tons of salt to West Windsor, which is enough to get through at least the next round of storms. To avoid similar problems in the future, township DPW employees have already submitted applications TWIC cards. If granted, they would be able to obtain salt during non-peak seasons, when supply is higher.
In the meantime, Borek says he will make as many trips as necessary to make sure West Windsor has enough salt to keep its roadways safe.
Said Alex Drummond, director of the township’s division of public works: “The situation was so bad that our workers were literally scraping the salt off the sides of the containers in an effort to utilize every last bit of salt that we had. So we were brainstorming ways to get more salt, and Councilman Borek came to our aid. Normally, salt is delivered on time with no problem. We have never had to deal with this problem before. But to ensure that we don’t face this problem again, several of our employees have applied for TWIC cards themselves.
“Because of George’s willingness, we have been able to gather enough salt to make it through the past rounds of storms. We are still low, and are currently restricted to picking up 75 tons per day, but we are much better off than we were a few weeks ago. We are so thankful that we have someone who is willing to give up so much of his free time to help us out. I cannot thank George enough for his help.”
