Cape May County Herald, 18 April 1984 IIIF issue link — Page 1

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COURT HOUSE - Sheriff Beech Fox said he will not respond (to accusations Monday from county GOP chairman Philip A. Matalucci that Fox used his department employees and a county car on personal business. Fox is running for his sixth term in the June Republican primary. He was drummed out of the regular GOP organization last week after he successfully challenged the party system of endorsing primary candidates in superior court.

Fire Claims Bar

WILDWOOD — Arson investigators are probing a pre-dawn blaze Monday that destroyed Oscar’s Cafe on the 4200 block of Atlantic Avenue. A general alarm was sounded after patrolmen Lillian Harrison saw smoke curling from the building around 1:15 a.m. Fifty firefighters with eight pieces of apparatus brought the fire under control around 3:30 a.m.

One Less Candidate WILDWOOD CREST - Commissioner Frank McCall dropped out of the threeway Republican race for Director Anthony Catanoso’s seat on the fivemember Board of Choosen Freeholders last week. McCall’s decision makes things a bit easier for his colleague, (Page 47 Please) Pesticides: Scattered Problems By E.J. DUFFY CREST HAVEN - ’There were not great surprises" but "scattered ‘problem areas’ " recorded by the county Pesticide Monitoring Project team in an overdue report slated for official release any day. That’s how Clay C. Sutton, environmental program administrator for the county Health Department, summarized the findings of two Stockton State College students who have been measuring levels of pesticides in local waters for the county as their senior project. Sutton forwarded the summary Feb. 27 to Freeholder Gerald M. Thornton to brief him about the monitoring results before a budget hearing where Ruth Fisher, president of Citizens' Association for the Protection of the Environment (C.A.P.E.) "plans to take it up with you." Sutton advised the freeholder. "Fisher was in Friday afternoon (Feb. 24) tolookat preliminary results; i.e.: saw data sheets," Sutton wrote Thornton who oversees the Health Department. "While I let her review it, I would not give her any copies." According to Sutton's summary of pesticide results, heavy metal (cadmium) concentrations were detected in Villas test wells. Retesting, he said, showed that “this is not major, but possibly relates to previous dumping." Further tests, Sutton said, indicate that the cadmium detected might be related to a chemical reaction in old pipes. "SCATTERED PESTICIDE problems along the Tuckahoe River," Sutton wrote, were found at a number of sites. "This (Page 3 Please)

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A NEW leader in the money market race. Page 49 Something NEW: Middle Township NEWS notes. Page 24 NEWEST property transfers. Page 52 NEW clothes for Easter? Where to stroll. Pages 37 and 59 .

CAPE MAY COUNTY Herald

Vol. 20 No. 16

1983 Seawave Corp All rights reserved

April 18, 1984

Middle ‘Holds’ Sewage

Doris Ward HOLLY PARTNERS — Attorney Frederick W. Schmidt Jr., left, and Realtor Thomas J. Repici, two of four partners in Holly Associates, at last week’s Middle Township Sewerage Commission meeting. Repici Told to Disconnect Motel From Subdivision

COURT HOUSE - Thomas.J. Repici this week will disconnect a six-inch sewer line he had connected to his 34-unit HyLand Motor Inn without permission of the Middle Township Sewerage Commission. The commission ordered Repici to disconnect after turning down his request for service. Members declined to discuss the issue because, they said, of the possibility of litigation. Repici has retained Wildwood attorney Henry Gorelick to represent him in the issue. Gorelick declined to discuss the case, which he termed "a private matter between me and my client." Repici's request, plus his offer to disconnect and resume on-site sewerage if he could not continue the connection, was in a hand-delivered letter dated April 9 and considered by a closed session of the commission at 4:40 p.m. last Wednesday, April 11. TWO HOURS EARLIER, two investigators with the Cape May County Prosecutor's office had visited the site of the connection, a 100-foot length of six-inch sewer pipe running to the rear of the motel from a 19-home subdivision, Romney East, owned by Romney Associates. Repici, one of the partners in Romney Associates, showed up shortly after the investigators. All three declined comment, but the investigators confirmed they were following up a request from Middle Township officials to probe the Herald’s April 4 report that the motel was connected to the sewage system without permission. Ther Herald had quoted contractor F. Wayne Shawl of Palermo as saying he installed the sewer lines, including the motel connection. The prosecutor’s office also has asked the commission and the Middle Township clerk to turn over all records to do with the commission, which dates to the fall of 1936 when township committee created the sewerage district under an act of the New Jersey Legislature. ROMNEY ASSOCIATES is a partner ship that includes Repici of Avalon Real Estate's Court House office, Realtors

William H. Tozour Jr. and David J. Kerr of Avalon Real Estate's Avalon office, Avalon masonry contractor Marino Cosenza, and Realtor Roger J. Soens of Soens and Moore in Avalon. Tozour and Kerr have not returned Herald phone calls for several weeks. Cosenza and Soens said they were shocked to learn of the connection from Romney East to the Hy-Land. "I was dumbstruck," said Cosenza. “The first we heard about it was when we read it in the Herald. We certainly didn't approve." Soens said he was "very annoyed about (Page 28 Please)

By JOE ZELNIK COURT HOUSE — With a swipe at the Cape May County Health Department for allegedly causing "confusion" the Middle Township Sewerage Commission last week reiterated its "hold" on all applications to connect to its sewage treatment plant. "I'm not too sure anybody knows what the flow is, or what we can add to it," commented LeRoy Westcott of the commission. As clerk of the board, he is paid $5,280 a year. The other two members, chairman John M. Ludlam and Michael Vistenzo, are unpaid. Consultant Al Herman told the commission that its meters showed average daily flows last December of 75,900 gallons; in January, 82,600; February, 73,300; and March, 98,000 "because of a very high day on the 29th." The plant has a capacity of 100,000 gallons HERMAN SAID county Health Department reports of weekly readings on the other hand, give a 400,000-gallon-per day figure "quite often." Herman said he had "a feeling" the county was reporting an "instantaneous flow rate," not the 24-hour average flow. “I think there might be some confusion," said Herman. Commission Solicitor John L. Ludlam. who presided at the meeting, asked Herman if there was instantaneous flow rate capacity. Herman said it was 340,000 gallons. But Herman pointed out that the county’s own tests of the plant's effluent for fecal coliform (from human waste) showed low readings of 2, 5, 23, etc. MPN (most probable number). The state allows 200, he said. Herman said there were three high readings last year — 1,600 once and 2,400 twice. I THINK the Health Department should have come back and sampled it to see if (Page 28 Please)

Doris Ward DATA DISCUSSED — Middle Township Sewerage Commission member Michael Vistenzo, left, listens while commission engineer Ray Herman explains sewer flow data for the Cape May Court House sewage treatment plant.