Pelzman pledges new animal shelter in ’06
Current shelter in less than desirable location
BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer

COURTESY PHOTO Cats available for adoption are housed near the entrance to the temporary shelter in Sewaren.

WOODBRIDGE — The township’s only animal shelter sits in the midst of tank farms and the collapsing buildings of an old arsenic-producing chemical plant in Sewaren.

Cats in cages stacked on cafeteria tables share the 30-by-40-foot wooden structure with dogs that are penned on concrete slabs.

“The intention was for this to be temporary housing,” said Health Director and former animal control supervisor Dennis Green, as he drove his white SUV through the labyrinthine driveways and passageways of the abandoned CP Chemicals plant.

COURTESY PHOTO Cats await Saturday when they get a chance of adoption at Petsmart on Route 35. The Sewaren facility is not allowed visitors.

The structure’s exterior of white aluminum siding is almost a welcome reprieve in contrast to the concrete and the yellow crumbling buildings surrounding it.

The shelter, which Green said can house up to 12 dogs and 30 cats, can be accessed through a single garage door. Natural light filters through two small windows at either end of the structure.

The state Office of Animal Welfare approved the facility as conditionally satisfactory for the first time this year. The health department was advised to provide better drainage because the place floods and to separate the cats from the dogs, Green said.

“They’d prefer we segregate the cats from the dogs because it reduces stress on the animals,” Green said. “We agree, but we don’t have the space to do that.”

Soon, they will.

“This administration is committed to a facility being built,” Mayor Frank G. Pelzman said.

Roughly $500,000 will be set aside in the 2006 municipal budget for the shelter, which will be located next the township’s health center in George Frederick Plaza, Pelzman said.

Officials have provided few details on the new facility, other than its location.

Local officials last week met with township hired architect Michael Testa, of Manalapan, about the placement of electrical outlets, but Pelzman said he did not sit in on the meeting.

Donna Jago, Pelzman’s chief of staff, attended the meeting but didn’t have any details about design plans,

“Nothing is set in stone,” Jago said. “Nothing’s concrete. Not even the materials. Anything could be changed.”

The town will “probably not” bond the $500,000 for the shelter, which will be built sometime in 2006, Jago said.

Currently, members of the public cannot visit the Sewaren shelter. Animals wearing bandannas that say “Adopt Me” are brought to the Route 35 Petsmart on Saturdays.

Other adoption days are held at the Woodbridge Veterinary Group and Hospital or the Iselin Veterinary Hospital, which the township also uses as a temporary shelter, although less animals can be housed there.

The township has paid $38,100 a year for the past four years up to house to four dogs and 15 cats in a 10-by-15-foot in the Iselin vet’s back room, said Dr. Ira Niedweski. Food and labor is included in the price, though medical treatment comes at an additional cost, Niedweski said.

“A fair amount of the time we will treat the animals at a discounted rate, but it’s still a lot of money,” he said. “Whatever our cost is, is what we charge them [the township].”

The township spends approximately $12,000 a year on medical treatment, Green said.

“Between the shelter costs and the medical costs, we spend a little over $50,000 a year,” he said.

Animals that need immediate medical treatment when they are brought in are taken to the vet, said animal control officer Mercedes Lopez.

“Sick animals go straight to the vet,” she said. “If they need medicine, they get medicine. If they need surgery, they get it.”

Each animal is given distemper and rabies vaccinations, she said.

Cats and dogs are not given away for free from the municipal shelters.

Cats cost $65; kittens, $40; large dogs, $60; and smaller dogs, $100, Green said.

All adopting owners pay by check, Green said. The money is then deposited into the department’s general fund.

Last year, Woodbridge Animal Control sheltered 197 dogs and 349 cats, according to Health Department records.

Of the dogs, 92 were reclaimed by

their owners, 40 were adopted, 34 were euthanized, and 30 were transferred to another shelter or animal rescue group, Green said.

Of the cats, 37 were reclaimed by their owners, 107 were adopted, 143 were euthanized, and 61 were transferred to another shelter or an animal rescue group, Green said.

“You have to take into account that a lot of feral cats are not considered adoptable,” Green said.

Only animals not considered adoptable are euthanized, he said.

Rarely are animals euthanized due to a lack of space, Green said.

“We haven’t had that situation in a long time,” he said. “We’ve been good with getting animals adopted. Petsmart is great with letting us come there.”

Six months ago, Green said, no one was permitted through the locked security gates for “security issues.”

“It’s amidst the tank farms,” Green said in October 2004. “With threats of bioterrorism, the public is not allowed access to it.”

A Sentinal reporter who asked permission to accompany Green to the shelter was denied access last October.

Last week, permission was granted for the visit.

“It wasn’t a homeland security issue,” Pelzman said. “It was a security issue. It still is a security problem. I decided I felt more comfortable with Dennis onboard now.”

Green was appointed health director in June 2004.

A visit to the Sewaren shelter begins through a gated corridor flanked by oil tanks located only yards from the fence — a “stone’s throw away” as Green described it.

Although Pelzman allowed a reporter to inspect the facility, Jago said no photographs of the facility could be taken.

Pelzman later changed his mind.

“I was concerned about what the pictures would look like in black and white,” he said. “It’s my administration that is finally doing something about this.”

Why was the temporary shelter built back to begin with?

Green said it was a place with the space for the shelter.

Animal advocates are not the only ones calling for a new shelter.

“Where it’s located you have to go through private property to get there and go through a locked gate,” Pelzman said. “That company is not happy with people coming in and out all the time.”

For Marge Petrow, a former volunteer for Woodbridge Animal Control, the shelter cannot come soon enough.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said.

She and four other women spent a majority of their time last year raising money to buy items for the Sewaren facility.

A refrigerator, a second air conditioner, animal bedding, and food and litter was purchased or donated by the group, which no longer volunteers for Woodbridge Animal Control.

“They don’t want us there,” Petrow said. “They never did. If they want our services, we’re still available. Tell Dennis Green to start returning phone calls.”

Woodbridge Animal Control now uses their own volunteers, Woodbridge Animal Group.

Green said he received an e-mail from Petrow months ago, stating she didn’t want to volunteer anymore.

Petrow verified his statement.

“I am one of the biggest advocates of this new shelter,” Green said. “I don’t think people realize that.”