Fishing club fears loss of trout stream

Friday, July 18, 2003
By JAN BARRY
STAFF WRITER

RINGWOOD - When winter's snow melted and rain lashed North Jersey well into June, silt-laden water ran off a housing construction site straight into West Brook, a trout stream feeding the Wanaque Reservoir.

That infuriates Bud Korteweg, president of the Windbeam Fishing Club, whose members worry about losing one of the last mountain brooks in New Jersey that harbor native trout.

Korteweg is especially fuming about a lack of official response to that episode during the borough's review of the developer's application for another, adjacent housing project.

In the case of that second project, the developer and the state agency that runs the reservoir system have agreed on measures they say will head off further problems. The utility, North Jersey District Water Supply Commission, has not made an issue of the runoff from the first construction during hearings on developer Jack Lefkovitz's proposal for the 39-home second development.

That proposal has been under review by the borough Planning Board since winter. Those homes would be on slopes above the 28-unit West Brook Hills development under construction.

The trout fishermen say they have complained to the state's environmental agency about the muddy discharges. But nothing about the matter has yet come up in oral testimony before the Planning Board on the new project. Experts and lawyers for Levkovitz and Skylands CLEAN, an ecology group, have testified week after week on other aspects, and the hearing has yet to be open for public comments.

At Monday's meeting a frustrated Korteweg blurted out: "I'm concerned about the runoff into the stream ... The stream is getting decimated!" Planning Board Chairman Elliot Green responded that the moment was inappropriate for such public comment and that Korteweg would get his opportunity at a future meeting.

Glen Van Olden, the soil conservation inspector for the Ringwood area, acknowledged Wednesday that there were runoff problems at the West Brook Hills construction site during the winter and spring.

"Unfortunately, there wasn't a mandated [drainage] detention basin" for the 28-home subdivision, he said. Van Olden said the developer has been doing the best he can to minimize soil erosion into the trout stream.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Levkovitz blamed the runoff on the unusually wet weather.

"When we have a heavy rain, we get a little bit of a problem," he said.

Both Van Olden and Levkovitz said the erosion has been contained by laying hay bales and crushed stone around the catch basins that direct runoff from the new development into the brook.

The construction site runoff prompted Skylands CLEAN to ask for a state Department of Environmental Protection investigation.

"The work on his present development is horrible," said Robin O'Hearn, the civic group's executive director. "Mud flowing into storm drains; there are no silt fences, no detention basins. We sent a letter to the DEP and have not had any response."

The DEP public information office did not respond Wednesday or Thursday to requests for comment.

The North Jersey District Water Supply Commission maintains that it has acted, in an agreement with Levkovitz on the proposed new housing, to protect the water quality in the brook feeding the Wanaque Reservoir. The utility says it reserves the right to take legal action against the developer if runoff controls designed to protect water quality are not properly installed. Those protections are to include a series of shallow seepage pits.

"Ultimately, it is the responsibility of other governmental entities with approval and enforcement powers to ensure that the proposed project, if approved, is constructed in a manner that ... minimizes the impact on the surrounding environment," Michael E. Restaino, the utility's executive director, stated in a recent letter to The Record.

E-mail: barry@northjersey.com

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