Published in the Asbury Park Press
By LOIS A. KAPLAN
STAFF WRITER
TRENTON -- A measure that would provide $1.5 million for carbon filtration systems on two United Water Toms River wells near the Garden State Parkway in Dover Township was unanimously voted out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee yesterday.
The bill (A-2975), sponsored by Assemblymen James W. Holzapfel and David W. Wolfe, both R-Ocean, now goes to the full Assembly for consideration.
The state Senate version (S-1761) is scheduled for consideration Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee. It is sponsored by Sen. Andrew R. Ciesla, R-Ocean, and Senate President Donald T. DiFrancesco, R-Union.
Linda L. Gillick, chairwoman of the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer, said last night she was glad to hear about the Assembly committee's action.
"It's truly necessary to start work, or these wells will not be ready for summer," she said.
She added that if the wells are not ready, the public runs a risk of having unknown chemicals in its drinking water.
With the filtration systems on these two wells in place, four of the six wells at the field will be protected, Gillick said.
"We hope the remaining wells will also receive filtration in the very near future," she added.
The citizens committee has asked that filtration systems be installed on two other shallow parkway wells, and that air strippers be placed on the four shallow wells that do not have them.
Health officials have said two of the wells -- numbers 24 and 44 -- have shown no history of contamination, but this does not reassure some residents.
Gov. Whitman is on record as supporting the filtering of wells 22 and 29 at the well field in Dover Township, where state and federal officials are probing elevated levels of cancer among area children. The governor has set a June 8 deadline for the filters to be operational.
According to Richard Ottens, production manager for United Water Toms River, the filters have been received, the necessary pipeline work is under way, and final connection work is anticipated before the deadline.
"It is essential that these filtration systems be installed on these wells to eliminate the fears and concerns of residents afraid to drink and bathe in the water," said Holzapfel. "Recent findings suggest that a plume of ground water contamination from the Reich Farm Superfund site has contaminated United Water Toms River's parkway well field."
He noted, however, that there's been no conclusive proof that water from these wells "actually contributed to the higher than normal incidence of cancer among our young people."
Wolfe said the two wells are needed on-line as soon as possible.
"This legislation is critical to the many Dover Township residents who rely on these wells as their source of drinking water. Past concerns about the quality of drinking water in Dover Township underscore the need for this legislation. We don't want to see mandatory water restrictions in place in the event we have a dry summer," he said.
Ciesla said the legislation is almost certain to become law, given that the Senate president is a co-sponsor and the governor's pledge to sign the funding measure. "We expect no problems to arise in the Appropriations Committee or in the full houses," he said.
He added that the state money will reimburse United Water for the expenses it has already incurred to meet the governor's deadline.
Holzapfel said the $1.5 million is expected to come from dedicated corporation business tax revenues in the budget of the Department of Environmental Protection.
Marian Olsen, a scientist from the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said last week it could take five to eight years to learn the toxicity of a chemical compound found in three United Water Toms River wells.
Scientists are trying to find out if a styrene acrylonitrile trimer, a chemical compound related to plastics production, is a human carcinogen. Preliminary tests have been inconclusive.
Discovery of tiny amounts of the trimer in United's wells 26 and 28 led to their being taken out of the drinking water system in November 1996. Carbon filtration systems were installed on them to remove the trimer from the water.
The trimer has since been discovered on at least one occasion in United's well 29.
All three wells are located in the company's parkway well field, off Dugan Lane. The trimer is believed to be in a plume of contaminated ground water migrating into the well field from the Reich Farm Superfund site, where several thousand barrels of chemical waste from Union Carbide Corp.'s Bound Brook plant were deposited by an independent trucker in the early 1970s.
Source: Asbury Park Press
Published: May 18, 1999
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