Angry Ringwood seeks action
JAN BARRY
RINGWOOD - Pressed by residents angry over gasoline-tainted well water in their neighborhood, borough officials are seeking fast action by the station owner to provide clean water to affected homes.
And Borough Council members want the state to lower the boom on MTBE, a chemical additive in gasoline that has been banned in 15 states after the substance designed to help reduce air pollution caused widespread water contamination.
MTBE has been linked to cancer and neurological problems in animal studies, and even minute amounts can taint water with a turpentine-like taste and odor, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Municipal officials are scheduled to meet today with representatives of Tosco Corp., a subsidiary of Houston-based ConocoPhillips, which owns the gas station where a leak was found by state inspectors a year ago. Later in the evening, the Borough Council is scheduled to discuss actions it would like the state to take on MTBE.
At issue is what to do about the bitter-tasting chemical that has seeped into wells at the Ringwood Shopping Center, the adjacent Ambulance Corps building, and 11 nearby homes. The apparent cause of the problem is a leak from cracks in gasoline storage facilities at a Mobil station called Circle K Store, at Skyline and Alta Vista drives.
While accepting responsibility, Tosco is questioning whether its station is solely responsible. In a recent report to the state Department of Environmental Protection, a Tosco consultant who tested a number of neighborhood wells noted that there are other gasoline-contaminated sites nearby, including a former Exxon station that leaked MTBE into a municipal well a decade ago.
"Although it is uncertain whether any of the water wells in the area of Skyline Drive have been impacted solely by the gasoline station we purchased less than two years ago, in full cooperation with the NJDEP, we have responded in a timely manner to the discovery of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) in the water supply well at the Ringwood Shopping Center," a ConocoPhillips area manager, Louis S. Mosconi, wrote to Mayor Allan Van Eck last week.
Mosconi said his company will consider testing additional private wells in the area and providing water treatment equipment to the owners of water wells already determined to be affected by MTBE.
Since September, the shopping center's well has operated with a carbon filter treatment system that the DEP ordered installed after tests showed the well water exceeded the state health standard for MTBE of 70 parts per billion three times since September 2001.
While test results at 11 private home wells are well below the state action level - most registered at less than 1 ppb - many homeowners in the neighborhood don't feel their water is safe to drink at any level of MTBE. And that fear is casting a pall over the neighborhood, several residents told the council last week.
Many who live in the neighborhood of single-family homes are concerned about health effects of MTBE on their small children, said Arnold Dalene of Alta Vista Drive. Rather than getting water filters, they would like a water line run to their homes, he said, from a municipal water main that runs along Skyline Drive.
Three new residents told the council that they were upset that no one told them about the gas station leak before they bought their homes this past summer. They demanded to know what government agency is responsible for informing homeowners and prospective buyers of pollution problems.
"Nobody else is going to buy a house until we get this resolved," Dalene said.
Borough health officer Chris Chapman replied that the DEP provides reports to the municipality only when test results exceed a state action level. And none of the tests on private home wells exceeded that level, he said.
"I think any kind of testing, you should be notified," Councilman William Marsala told the residents.
Councilman Jerry Holt suggested that the council send a resolution to the state Legislature asking it to change the action level for MTBE to 5 parts per billion, the level used in California.
Test results for wells at the Ambulance Corps building (43 ppb) and a nearby home on Alta Vista Drive (37.6 ppb) exceeded action levels in California and several other states that set lower limits than New Jersey's standard.
Jan Barry's e-mail address is barry@northjersey.com
Copyright © 2003 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
Copyright infringement notice
home
Web Services paid for by the Ringwood Democratic Organization
P.O. Box 81 - Ringwood, NJ 07456
Pat Ryan, Treasurer