To the Editor:

After reading your lead story on the 5.5 million-square-foot warehouse project proposed for U. S. Route 1 [“Opposition Grows to Route 1 Warehouse Project,” June 22, page 1], I immediately wrote and sent the following letter to Hemant Marathe, the mayor of West Windsor Township.

Dear Mr. Mayor:

The lead article on the front page of Town Topics reports that the members of the West Windsor Township Planning Board are scheduled to vote on the 5.5 million-square-foot warehouse project proposed for the former American Cyanamid property on U. S. Route 1. Before you make this very major decision, I urge you and your colleagues to embrace candor and caution.

Specifically, please do more research and have additional open dialogue with all the actual constituencies: with West Windsor’s neighboring municipalities, the county, the state, with environmental experts, and, indeed, with the people of central New Jersey.

Your decision will impact the quality of life for everyone in our region for many years. Moreover, the environmental costs of allowing this gigantic project to be built will, I think, far exceed any economic benefits.

Here is one type of serious potential impact from building 5.5 million-square-feet spread across nine warehouses: diesel pollution. Diesel-powered trucks will have to move the vast amounts of “stuff” that will be put into and taken out of the warehouses.

Please read this article I wrote for The New York Times on diesel pollution in New Jersey (https://tinyurl.com/bdfv6n39). Although The Times published it years ago, I believe that the scientific/medical concerns and conclusions it presents are still largely relevant. The bottom line is that diesel exhaust can and does seriously harm creatures that breathe.

First, do no harm.

Richard Trenner
Province Line Road

Note: Marathe has pointed out to Town Topics that there are seven warehouses in the project, not nine, and the pending application in front of the West Windsor Township Planning Board is only for the first three.