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‘To be, or not to be’ really is the question
(by Kathryn A. Burger - September 16, 2008)
Park Ridge officials will meet with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection on Sept. 17 to discuss the fate of the Mill Pond Dam.
Borough officials have entertained the possibility of removing the dam rather than repairing it, as ordered by the DEP some six years ago. In June, the council heard a presentation by The Louis Berger Group, a Morristown firm, outlining “preliminary alternatives,” among them removing the dam and converting the area now occupied by the pond to parkland.
The mere mention of tampering with the status quo has aroused a loud chorus of objections from residents.
Though most vociferous at the council’s Aug. 12 meeting, citizens have voiced their objections, complaints and outrage at subsequent meetings when the topic was not even on the agenda.
It is not clear whether or not the borough will get an immediate answer to the one most important but rather complex question they are expected to pose to DEP personnel. The answer, however, could be a simple “yes” or “no.”
In order to take the Berger Group’s proposals to the next step, the borough has to determine if the DEP would be willing to wait what will probably be at least another three to four years for the borough to remove the dam. If the DEP is not willing to wait and requires the borough to go forward with the repairs, the proposals to remove the dam and the pond will be history and the historic dam and pond will remain.
But, if the DEP is more interested in the dam’s eventual removal than its repair, which one Berger Group staffer indicated, at the June meeting, could well be the case, then the council will have to decide if wants to go any further with investigating alternatives.
Last year, the borough began a dam repair/pond-dredging project, the result of the DEP’s 2002 finding that the dam was in need of repair. Work stopped shortly after it began because of a dispute with the contractor. Since then, nothing has been done.
Residents have questioned why the council has not re-bid the project begun in 2007 and proceeded with the dam repair and dredging as it had committed to do, since it took nearly six years to get the necessary DEP permits required to make the repairs. Some asked what had changed from last year to this and why they are now investigating options that would eliminate the dam completely.
One reason given by officials was that with the dam gone, and the pond with it, the cost of maintaining them would disappear, too. Residents countered that that was the case in 2002 when the DEP ordered the repairs but the borough didn’t consider any other course than to the repairs and dredging. No cost estimates for the dam’s removal have been mentioned. It will cost approximately $1.5 million to fix the dam and dredge the pond.
As reported on Aug. 20, the council authorized payments to Berger for $2,000 for Phase I; and $13,500 for Phase II should the borough decide to go further. The first phase includes determining if the DEP would go along with the plan to remove the dam. Phase II, according to Berger’s proposal, involves concept designs and feasibility studies. Gene Vinci, the borough administrator, said that Phase II has to be done to get estimates on the dam removal options.
It is expected that the meeting with the DEP will be discussed at the council’s next scheduled meeting, on Tuesday, Sept. 23.
Kathryn A. Burger's e-mail address is burger@northjersey.com.
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