Hot stuff

A Camden, NJ facility will treat -- and get heat from -- raw sewage.

The Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority will warm its Ferry Avenue headquarters with heat captured from effluent, my colleague James Osborne reports in today's Inquirer. The $1.3 million project is being funded by PSE&G; New Jersey's largest utility estimates the CCMUA could end up cutting its annual electric bill by $80,000.

Before going any further, let's, shall we say, dispose of any and all facile jokes about hot air, and/or shovelling.

It's true that the CCMUA was rightly despised for decades as a Democratic patronage palace that spewed foul odors all over the city's Waterfront South neighborhood and beyond.

But under the leadership of executive director Andrew Kricun, the CCMUA has dramatically reduced the frequency of its olfactory offenses. And it has built a productive relationship with Heart of Camden and other nearby organizations.

Meanwhile, the Center for Environmental Transformation in Waterfront South is generating green programs at the grassroots level.

All of which to my mind makes this resilient neighborhood a perfect place for PSE&G's innovative experiment.