Boro investigating when well testing information was received

Suburban Trends, December 29, 2002

By MICHAEL LICALSI
Staff Writer

RINGWOOD - The borough is conducting an investigation to see if someone from the Ringwood Health Department was, in fact, receiving information about well testing and not sharing those findings with other health office employees; elected officials, and residents near the affected area.
Mayor Allan Van Eck asked that Borough Manager Walt Davison head the investigation.
"I'll be reviewing the information and reporting back to the council with my findings," said Davison. Davison said that since the matter is currentiy under investigation and involves someone from the borough's personnel, he could not yet comment on many of the details surrounding it.
The investigation stems from information produced at the Dec. 18 Mayor and Council meeting when Councilwoman Wenke Taule read from a timeline she received from the Passaic County Health Department.
The timeline stated that on certain dates; test results were sent from a fax machine in the Ringwood's health office to the Passaic County Health Department, detailing well test information.
The County Health Department confiirmed that timeline last week. According to a letter sent from the county office in Paterson, Ringwood was notifled, and in fact was asked to take a second well test sample to confirm the initial findings of 108 parts per billion of MTBE found in the Ringwood Shopping Plaza well on September 2001.
The letter also states the Ringwood waited an entire month before notifying the county about the tests, and when asked to conduct a second~~plmg did not perform- that duty ~ a timely in~a:i~ner either
At the heart of the issue are Ringwood residents living in and around the Mobil Gas Station, the source of the MTBE leak that has since been repaired. Many feel that though low levels of MTBE were found in nearby wells, someone from Ringwood's borough should have relayed information to the public, even if the laws state they are not required to unless the MTBE reach the minimum level of 70 parts per billion.
The county states that one of Ringwood's well operators,
Susan Light, was receiving the information, and was also the Ringwood employee that faxed information to them concerning other well tests.
At the meeting, health officer Christopher Chapman stated that besides the initial report from Sept 2001 claiming that Ringwood Shopping
Plaza's well contained high levels of MTBE and the more recently publlcized information, he had not seen any other data concerning MTBE leyels found in Ringwood wells.
He did admit that it was possible someone from his office could have sent the faxes to the county without notifying him or anyone else.
But officials from the Passaic County Health Department want to make sure that people don't think they were ignoring the issue.
“We don't want residents to get the impression that we weren't aware of the situation; that wasn't the case at all," said Benemina Sancivieri, from the county's press office.
According to the Passaic County Health Office in Paterson, anything it was aware of was sent to or received from one of the borough's well operators during repeated tests that took place quarterly beginning last September.
Ringwood officials stated that though the break down in communication is still being investigated, council members will be pushing to try to lower the state's MTBE unsafe level of 70 parts per billion.
Ringwood also said it would join any other municipality’s battle that favors the elimination of MTBE from gasoline.