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Dover, water company settle dispute
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Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
TOMS RIVER -- Dover Township's battle with United Water Toms River has officially ended.
The state Board of Public Utilities on Tuesday approved a settlement between the township and the water company.
BPU spokesman Eric Hartsfield said the board unanimously approved the settlement, which United Water and the Dover Township Committee had approved in the spring.
The agreement ends Dover's two-year battle with the water company over United's ability to provide a safe and adequate supply of drinking water here.
Under the settlement, United Water has agreed to drill a new well next year with a capacity of 1.4 million gallons per day and to add two more wells, both with a daily capacity of 650,000 gallons, by 2002.
The company will also add storage facilities and has agreed to a yearly review of its performance each January through 2005. United serves about 90,000 people in Dover Township, Berkeley and South Toms River.
"It has monitoring provisions, which the township will follow, pursuant to the agreement," said Committeeman J. Mark Mutter, who was closely involved in negotiations with United. "The settlement that the BPU has ratified is not the end. It's just a beginning."
United Water officials have long insisted that the improvements spelled out in the settlement were always planned. But in August 1997, the Township Committee filed a petition with the BPU, claiming the water company had failed to provide an adequate and safe drinking water supply for the growing township.
The township's petition asked the BPU to order the water company to drill more wells and to increase its storage capacity.
The committee's action followed a warm and dry spring and summer, during which United was forced to institute mandatory restrictions on outdoor water use. The company was also forced to briefly activate two wells that had been off-line for months because the raw well water contained traces of styrene acrylonitrile trimer, a chemical compound related to plastics production.
Hartsfield said the BPU made no decision on another facet of Dover's petition, which asked the board to decide if United has a valid franchise to operate in the township.
The company's original 50-year franchise agreement, granted by the township in 1897, expired in 1947.
Township and water company officials can find no evidence that the agreement was ever renewed. The BPU referred the matter to the state Office of Administrative Law for a decision, Hartsfield said.
Source: Asbury Park Press
Published: September 3, 1999
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