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Herald & Lantern 8 February '84

Salt Taints Wells-

(Fran Page l) / there was do sodium problem “We had one report of high sodium about three years ago,” he said, “but it went l away.” A *1983 PROGRAM PLAN* prepared by the county as it took over responsibility on Jan. 26 from the DEP for a ground water pollution control program, called “salt water intrusion...a major concern among municipal and county officials " It said “summer (water consumption) data for Sea Isle City is suspect and requires further research.” It said one of Cape May's three wells “is used only during fires or peak seasonal demand periods when -diluted with better quality water from the other two wells. This situation has developed due to high chloride levels ..’ 1 Grover Webber, a principal planner with the county, said Cape May tried to get a new well In Lower Township about two years ago, but “ran into difficulties.” It has had no new wells in 15 years, he said. The county “Program Plan" pledges expanded well monitoring and quarterly sampling instead of the previous annual The data in the plan, submitted to DEP last month, concludes with the year 1961. The data came from monitoring programs conducted by the county Planning Department and the DEP. PLANNING HAS BEEN monitoring 18 observation weljs for about 15 years. The county Health Department tests those samples, as well as samples from home wells when requested by individuals. But the county does not have equipment that specifically tests for sodium. Instead, it tests for chloride. Since salt is sodium and chloride, the chloride results are supposed to be reliable indicators of sodium, Sutton said. “The sodium test is expensive," said Sutton. “I proposed last year we get the fairly expensive equipment to test for it. It’s in the county budget and we should have it by April. We do want to look at the sodium counts themselves.” ‘Hie equipment will cost $2,217, be said. Manlandro at. Mae Mallow said H charges $8 to test water for sodium. NOT EVERYONE FEELS testing for chloride is a reliable method for determining sodium levels. "Sodium in salt water is kind of a fickle thing,” said Webber. “We monitor for chlorides because historically it’s a good indicator of shit water intrusion. But there

23-Unit Mall by June (From Page 1) The project is being financed by Progress Federal Savings Bank of Norristown, Pa., Rae said He said it will finance the purchase of the property and the mall construction, and also proride mortgage money for the shop buyers. The purchase and construction will cost "in excess of $3 million,” according to a bank official. The units will sell for from $90,000 to $279,000, Rae said. HARBOR SQUARE will be part onestory, part two-story, with all stores opening on a center mall. It has 100 feet of frontage on 96th and 97th streets and is 220 feet deep. Rae said there are already nine tenants awaiting settlement, including the James Candy Co. of Atlantic City, Dippy Don’s Ice Cream of Avalon, a Pizza Pan store, a gift shop, a gourmet candy/popcorn store, and a video arcade. Diaco has constructed 76 condominiums in the five-block area on Diird Avenue in Stone Harbor between 78th and 83rd streets. Cambridge Green, Heron Cove and Stone Harbor Bay Chi) 1 are finished and sold, Rea said. Twenty-four units are “in progress," Rea said, 12 at Stone Harbor Bay Club 2 and 12 called Stone Harbor Gardens under construction. UNITS AT BAY CLUB 2 sell for from $149,000 to $225,000, Rea said. Stone Harbor Gardens units will sell for about $130,000 to $175,000 be said. Diaco also has proposed to build nine mere condos in the area, to be called. Heron Harbor. Diaco originally intended to transfer the Hahn's liquor license to a restaurant be planned at 81st Street and the bay. But borough council hastily amended an ordinance last November to limit sale of alcoholic beverages to the present central business district.

is not a direct correlation. It’s erratic. There is no direct ratio.” Told that most testing of county drinking water uses the chloride reading to determine sodium, he 1 commented. “They used to bleed you in medicine, too." Manlandro said sodium content is not on the list of a dozen items for which the DEP requires testing. It also is not required for VA or FHA loans, she said. WILLIAM LAFFEY at the DEP’s Bureau of Potable Water said ‘'sodium is a parameter required to be monitored by public water supplies every third year." He said it was required by April 1, 1983, and will be required again by April 1,1986. Sodium, he' added, was “just recently added" to standards included in the state’s Safe Drinking Water Act. Sutton said the Health Department met “informally’ recently with several well drillers to discuss where they have been noting the worst sodium problems. He declined to identify the drillers. A representative of Jersey Cape Well Drilling in Villas said it tests for chlorides and “to me, chlorides is salt. That’s a salt test.” "Hie representative, who asked not to be identified, said salt is a problem in some wells in the Villas, but “you can get away from it by drilling shallow or very deep.” HE SAID SALT is found at 90-110 feet, but can be avoided by drilling 30-50.feet or 200 feet. He said the conditioning was worst in the'north end of Villas. Other sources mentioned Frances, Cardinal and Wilde streets as having salt water problems. The driller also said the salt water is “heading toward the Wildwood Pumping Station*’ (at Rio Grande). Ironically, among the apparent reasons for the' Health Department’s less-than-adequate data is a laboratory fee system it started last year. The department’s "Program Plan” said the “fee schedule for home owners has, in fact, cut down on the amount of nitrate and chloride data available to planners." IN ADDITION TO increasing its water monitoring program, the Health Department is asking the municipalities and the DEP to provide their data for analysis. All the municipalities except Ocean City have already responded, Sutton said. "The data will be on the (Planning Department) computer in a couple weeks," said Sutton. “We will be taking a close look at the level of change and how rapidly the salt water is coming in." “We’ll have a better handle on in it in a month or two,” said Elwood Jarmer, county planning director. Sutton and Jarmer appeared to^e critical of DEP’s role in monitoraig sodium. “The DEP was supposed to be monitoring this closely," said Sutton. “I don’t want to say they’re not, but we want lo have a quarterly handle on this. We don’t want to make lots of phone calls every two years. “We believe a lot of it (data) is being.lost in the files up there," he said. “The state is too big. We can’t rely on the state to provide ail this data. We need our own data analyses.” „ “Up to now, the data has been sitting around in drawers and files," agreed Jarmer. THERE IS NO GREAT alarm here," said Sutton. “If there is a high degree of sodium, normally they’ll just close one well and dig another. But we probably can’t do that forever. There will be a stopping place.” “If our assumptions are correct," said Jarmer, “in the long term, the islands may not be able to rely on the water out there. "Each island community should be concerned,” he said. “If one of the islands gets salt, the more immediate problem will be the distribution. Who will arbitrate if Stone Harbor, Avalon, Sea Isle all need water?" Both Sutton and Jarmer called sodium “the most crucial problem” and the Health Department’s “program plan" referred to salt water intrusion as “tfur main ‘pollution’ concern...” “Our planning for growth depends on the water supply,” said Jarmer. “DRINKING WATER is the ultimate constraint on development," agreed Sutton. “We will run out ot drinking water long before we run out of land.” Documents from the Health and Planning departments report that water problems are more severe in the summer (tourist) month* when the county's water consumption more than triples. Heavy use of water brings down the pressure and the salt water is more apt to flow into wells from the ocean and Delaware bay.

News Digest(From Page 1) named County Treasurer and GOP Chairman Philip A. MaLalucci to the campaign's 10-member statewide advisory committee during a State House press conference Monday. Matalucci, who heads the state County Chairmen’s ’ Association, served as the 10-county South Jersey cooqlinator for Reagan Bush in 1980 and in a similar post for former President Gerald R. Ford.

It’s Not the Gift COURT HOUSE - A dedicated Red Cross volunteer dropped a buck into a Red Cross container being held by a lady in a shopping center the other day. A few w hours later she began wondering why the agency was collecting that way. It isn’t. Gertrude Yesgoah, executive director, warned the public not to get suckered. Save your contribution for the annual fund drive in March.

Nominees in Wings WILDWOOD — City council is expected to act at a special 7 p.m. meeting In City Hall today on Mayor-Earl Ostrander's six nominees for the resort’s fire, public safety r law, public works, law, and public relations department heads. With a 5-0 vote last Wednesday, council confirmed treasurer-comptroller Steven Ritchie as the $33,000 a year director of revenue and finance.

Litter or Aid? < OCEAN CITY — Avalon regards them as unwanted litter but this resort is still using Christmas trees to build its dunes. Northfield, Atlantic County, donated hundreds of trees that were placed along the beaches by juveniles in the police diversion program and the Holy Spirit Surfing Team, file city used more than 1,000 trees to build dunes several years ago. Now it is shifting emphasis to dune maintenance. *

Quick Response MARMORA — State environmental of..ficials plan to drill a test well this week to determine the extent of water contamination near Route 9 and Roosevelt Boulevard. Four private wells have been fouled by gasoline apparently leaked from abandoned tanks. For the past few months, the township has been supplying two well owners with water. The state has known about the contamination for almost a year, a state official confirmed, and decided to do something about it in August.

Coming to Terms? NORTH WILDWOOD - Mayor Anthony Catanoso is scheduled to meet today with an official of the state Bureaii of Construction Code Enforcement to discuss a possible state takeover ot the city’s construction inspection office. The bureau and state Commission of Investigation have been^robing office operations since June when construction official Anthony Prof eta, Catanoso and building inspector Eugeoe'Sanguinetti battled about the latter’s insistence that Thomas DiDonato install fire suppression devices in his Boardwalk mall. Budget Due Thurs. AVALON — Borough council is expected to introduce the 1964 budget during a special 10 a.m. meeting tomorrow and consider a resolution, authorizing a new two-year labor agreement with Local 1963 of the Civil and Public Employes that represents police dispatchers Council is also scheduled to introduce an ordinance amending Chapter V, of the borough’s Revised General Ordinances, which pertains to personnel. Five Arrested

SEVEN MILE BEACH - Avalon and

Stone Harbor police arrested four youths and an Avalon adult, 18, last week and seized $4,500 in goods the five allegedly stole in the boroughs since December More arrests are expected, police confirmed. Those arrested were either charged with burglary, conspiracy, theft, forgery and possession of stolen property or a combination of offenses. The

juveniles were released into their parents' custody and the adult on his own

recognizance.

Wildwood, Cops, Sued WUDWOOD - Marc Duhrkoff, 2$. of North Wildwood is asking Superior Court to award him monetary damages for the bee ting he allegedly suffered at the hands of Wildwood police in June 1962. This city, fonnw Police Chief Harry Breslin, his son, ex-Patrolman Sean Breslin, ex-Officer William Varna and summer Patrolman James Nanos are named as defendants

$634,000 Surplus A OCEAN CITY — While carrying a $634,000 sifrplus, the local school district is asking the state to okay a $513,247 waiva in the cap law to equip and staff a $3.5-million high school addition. The disuict's tentative $11,164,588 represents a 10 percent increase ova last year, including $7,563,367 to’be raised by taxes. Without final figures on expected state aid etc. the district forecasts an average $5G taif increase per property owner

$6,747 Raise NORTH WILDWOOD - Mayor Anthony Catanoso was angry with Councilman Lewis Vinci's suggestion last week that mayor and councilman cut their salaries to compensate for the $6,747 raise council authorized when promoting mayoralty aide Thomas Flud to a newly-created city administrator post. That $29,000 job was designed to compensate for Catanoso's expected absences over the next few years. But, Catanoso said, he will pot cut his $18,689 salary by the $5,263 Vinci recommended.

Charged with Arson SOUTH SEAVILLE — Superior Court Judge James A. O’Neill freed rookie volunteer fireman Robert B. Bailey, 18, of Main Street here last week on his own recognizance after his arraignment fa the Jan. 13 Aggravated arson of his neighbor s vacant Dennis Township home. The suspended Ocean View volunteer fireman fought the blaze at 590 Mam Street and was treated fa smoke inhalation at Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital.

Wave Takes O.C. Man

OCEAN CITY - Hugh MacMullan, 66. of Kingston Lane drowned Saturday and three other men were injured off Long Island, N.Y., when a wave capsized a 28-foot boat in the icy waters of Jones Beach Inlet. When the Grover Sea Skiff overturned, MacMullan lost hold ot his son, Daniel, 32. Coast Guardsmen and Nassau County marine police pulled five survivors from ■the water 24 hours lata. Among the injured was MacMLilian's friend, Richard Wilkinson, 48, of Caroline Lane here.

Judge Orders Cop

WILDWOOD - Maya Earl Ostrander has until tomorrow to ortter his brotha, acting Police Chief Wilbur Ostranda, to station police at city council meetings, Superia Court Judge L. Anthony Gibson ruled Friday. The judge did not bar the maya from meeting with city workers as requested by council. But, ova objections from Ostranda * attorney, Gibson left standing his Jan. 17 orda, prohibiting the maya from changing City Hall locks and interfering with council sessions, which Ostranda threatened to do in a Jan. 13 meeting with employes.