24 Herald - Lantern - Dispatch 29 May '85

Cox Hall: New Sign But Few Changes / By E. J. DUFFY TOWN BANK warning signs have replaced the handlettered wooden ones erected in a rush last June at Cox Hall Creek's bayfront discharge pipe. j - - .

The contaminated creek is supposed to be dredged of silt next Monday, but that won't do a whole lot to decrease the stench or reduce, the levels of human Waste bacteria this summer along local bathipg beaches. Water monitoring begins again this week I.as( summer, monitoring revealed levels exceeded the testing scald of 2,400 MPN i most probable number) ; 50 MPN is considered the maximum safe bacteriav level Those testing results prompted local residents to complain about the persistent pollution to Gov Thomas Kean, state, county and local officials. Residents griped that they were unaware of the bayfront contamination until The Lantern published a report about it in its June 27 edition. They sent copies of it. and a 100-name petition for creek cleanup, to Kean and other officials, arguing that certain of them were "not aware" about "exteasive" beach ase near the discharge pipe by residents' children, grand-children and visitors. Meanwhile, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) told the towaship MUA to repair its sewage treatment equipment in Cox Hall Creek lagoons and come up with a permanent remedy to the problem Officials from several agencies sat down last fall to try and solve it. SO FAR. NOTHING MUCH has been done - besides the new signs and pending dredging The MUA hasn't improved its equipment and doesn't plan to in the near future. Residents can expect another summer of contaminated bay water and foul air. Carol Osborn. senior environmental specialist with the DEP, held a surprise visit earlier this month at the MUA sewage treatment plant. Villas, to follow up last summer's odor complaints and "see what the authority has done since last fall" on upgrading its equipment, according to DEP spokesman George Klenk "Have they taken any sludge out?" Osborn was asked "No. it's full of sludge." she replied "The lagoon is full of Sludge." What little sludge could be removed isn't even equal to what's being dumped in. she said, because the MUA pump is too small to discharge sludge rapidly enough and a larger pump would create too much of a "biological load" on the treatment equipment Although the DEP told the MUA last summer to overhaul the underwater pipes that pump oxygen into the treatment lagoons, that hasn't been done because those pipes are submerged in several feet of sludge that the small pump isn't removing "TIIE ORIGINAL PLAN that we initial- ( ly approved has been put aside." Osborn /: said of DEP calls last summer for im- f i mediate, and long-term MUA equipment < improvements \ She told Township Manager James R. Stump, MUA executive director since midFebruary. that the DEP now wants a specific tuqgtable on when those improvements will be installed He's promised to deliver Stump conceded earlier this month. | however, that the MUA has yet to meet , any of the DEP deadlines. "The MUA has | been under the gun for a year now." he ad ded. "The DEP's breathing down our i necks for improvements. " . But. he maintained, "it doesn't make sense to do things miss-mash. I'm putting *" everything together in a complete package ." In other words, those immediate equipment improvements that the DEP wanted last summer — improvements that might reduce odors and bacteria from the MUA treatment lagoons - won't be done until the MUA starts the long-term upgrading of its treatment plant "IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE to do one thing." Stump neasoned Originally projected as a $3 million-plus job. Stump is trying to upgrade and expand the plant's capacity for less with a loan-grant from the state That project is tentatively slated to begin this fall but. if the pending creek dredging is any indication, plant im- )

i .riNING ,<oAFE* WATER NO SWIMMING OR WADING PERMITTED BY ORDER OF HEALTH WT provements could be stalled while the MUA awaits required state permits. The Cox Hall Creek hassle would thus begin its third year of proposed but unaccomplished solutions. Van Note-Harvey Associates, the MUA engineering firm, estimated the dredging job and related work at $143,500. The work included extending the discharge pipe into the bay with supporting groins. Stump said last month he could have the same work done for about $10,000 and applied for a DEP permit. Because of the cost ($500 a foot), he said last week, he's dropped plans to extend the discharge pipe 200-225 feet into the bay — the distance necessary to properly dilute Cox Hall Creek's polluted water with the bay's. HE'S HIRED GWYN Dredging to complete work, on the creek bed only, for $4,499. It was supposed to begin Monday, but. so far. the permit hasn't been issued Kevin Broderick of the DEP told Stump May 15 that he just received the dredging permit application Stump submitted weeks ago. Stump asked Broderick to ex pedite it and. according to Stump. Broderick said he couldn't understand the rush since the pollution problem has existed "for 11 years." "He wrote and said he wanted to know what we're going to do with the dredged silt and what we're doing with the outfall pipe," Stump said of Broderick. Stump said he told Broderick that the silt will "go right there." along the creek banks, but the bayfront discharge pipe t^on't be extended as originally planned. I'm going to keep impressing on him that this has to be resolved." Stump said of Broderick. / "I'm saying this is a health emergency." Stump said earlier. "You know. I've got this guy (Gwyn) coming in (to dredge the creek Monday)." ^ Would he dredge without the permit9 "I'm starting dredging on the 27th - put it that way." Stump replied Why was he willing to call a "health emergency" for the creek dredging, that will do little to reduce Cox Hall contamina lion, but willing to wait at least another to start the lagoon improvements that the DEP wanted immediately summer9 Stump summarized the MUA's answer that question: "We're trying to work out something acceptable in our time frame "

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(From Page l) "counted." and identified with an ID number plus information on when it was purchased, its current value, and how long it should last. Infrastructure — roads, sewer lines, etc — will not be counted, by state decision Bridges will. THE COUNTY'S BIGGEST single job probably w ill be the Crest Haven complex. Scott said. Outside appraisal firms probably will be brought in to set values on land and buildings, he indicated And "reasonable

estimates" by third parties or insurance firms may be accepted for in difficult-to-estimate cases. The whole project will require additional auditing time, but Scott said he couldn't guess what it could cost the county But. he pointed out. it's a one-time project "From now on it will be an ongoing thing The value will remain until the item is scrapped, or sold, or of no value Then it will come off the list." The "fallout benefit." he said, is that there "should be less money spent in the future on . duplication of effort by auditors."

Sewers, Taxes Brought Into Court Move Talks By E.J. DUFFY

ERMA — Plans to relocate county courts to temporary quarters at the airport here I The county wants to move the courts in November while existing facilities in Cape May Court House are being renovated. County freeholders have appointed Ocean City architect Edwin Howell to redesign part of airport Building No. 8 for the temporary courts. But, the freeholders heard, the planned move is not moving as planned. "Something that seemed pro forma turned out to be a can of worms," Elwood Jarmer, county planning director, told the freeholders earlier this month. Since the county airport is located in Lower Township, the temporary court facilities must be approved by its Planning Board. The board's scheduled for a final decision June 20 but has rajsed some questions not directly related to the issue, Japner reported. /He wanted to know if he should ask a county attorney along for the next meeting with township dfficials. "IT WOULD SEEM TO ME good business to have the attorney there." replied Freeholder Director Gerald M. Thornton. ,vWe have him on staff and I think you should use him." When Lower's planners were last considering the county's temporary court plans, Jarmer said after the freeholder meeting, they told him they wanted eight or nine matters cleared up, most of them routine. "The two that require some further study are the sewer commitment... and you have to show that taxes have been paid," Jarmer explained. The county rents sections of its airport buildings to businesses and one of them is "in arrears" on township taxes, he added. County sewage treatment commitment in the Lower Township MUA's Villas plant is a tougher nut to crack. Lower Township Manager James R. Stump, who also serves as the MUA executive director, was supposed to meet with county Counsel Harry A. Delventhal Jr. to renegotiate the county-MUA contract that expired earlier this month. That pact allocated the airport 160.000 daily gallons of capacity in the Villas plant. 60.000 gallons of it as reserve The five-year agreement also allowed a three-year grace period from payments on the reserve BIT THE CONTRACT never stipulated what those payments should be in the final two years and. according to Stump, the MUA never collected any county money for the reserve capacity If the "county should have been billed at the same reserve rate for a single-family home ($72 a year for 250 daily gallons), the airport would owe $17,000 for each of the two contract years not covered by the grace period But. Stump has conceded. "I don't know if we t the MUA > treat them < the county ) the same as a dwelling unit " on reserve fees Uncollected reserve fees are on the bargaining table when he and Delventhal renegotiate the airport's sewage commitment contract Since those fees are also be ing weighed by township planners while deciding designs for temporary court facilities, the issue could stall the move south while the planners await a new contract — or if they don't like the one that's negotiated ( Lower's mayor and a councilman sit on the mayor-appointed Planning Board )y

"But it goes without saying," Jarmer reasoned, that the same sewage treatment commitment for the airport would continue .in\the meantime. Stump agreed on that point, said Jarmer. NOT EXACTLY. SAID STUMP. "I said I'm/going to give him a letter saying we're -iirnegotiations... I don't see any problem," Stump added, referring to continued sewage service for the airport. But, he stressed, his letter to Jarmer will be something less than a promise of the same commitment. Stump has vowed to collect unbilled sewer fees for airport reserve treatment capacity. He discovered them while sifting through MUA records in the wake of the county prosecutor's February investigation of alleged underbillings. In a Feb. 25 letter to Stump, County Prosecutor John Corino estimated that the MUA failed to collect $6,700 last year alone — just from five of the seven businesses he probed that use MUA sewers. The sixth business wasn't billed at all; the seventh didn't pay. according to Corino. After his own investigation of MUA bills. Stump determined that 75 commercial MUA users together owed it nearly $24,000 from 1985 undercharges. He mailed them revised sewer bills last month and speculated then that just as much could have been lost in each of the past 13 years. . \ The MUA, he complained, has not revised its billing procedures since it was founded then by former executive director Joseph Roop, an ex-mayor of Lower. Stump replaced him in mid-February. FORMER MAYOR PEGGIE Bieberbach. who asked Corino for the MUA probe, and other township activists have been proding the authority to collect all sewer undercharges — not just those from 1985. Bieberbach has complained that the MUA might have been able to collect 1984 undercharges if the township government honored her October itquest fol- a local probe of the MUA. When it didn't, she went to Corino. Experts in the field and even Stump conceded that the MUA would probably have to write off as uncollectabie those undercharges prior to 1985. But, Stump confirm- v ed last week, former state Sen. James Cafiero, the MUA solicitor, researched the [ question and found a 70-year-old precedent \ that might make overdue collections possible. -nJ Despite Amplications involved in determining *tfhat an MUA customer's sewer usage was-and what that customer should have Jieen billed during each of suspect yea/s. Stump said he intends to use Cafiero 'gl dusty precedent to backbill those Gustfimers That means sorting a lot of old MUA records ( there are some 2,000 commercial sewer users) and comparing them with mercantile licenses, building permits etc. in trying to gauge past usage from business seating capacity and other measures WHERE THAT FALLS short of accuracy. Stump said, he'll try to negotiate payment of undercharges with a sewer user. If that also fails, he added, he's willing to go to court. For commercial sewer users like restaurants and taverns, determining past undercharges will be a tedious task since many of them have changed the seating capacity on which their sewer charges are partially based. Several fall into that complicated category on the list of 75 commercial sewer users that have been backbilled for alleged 1985 undercharges. Other users, however, should be much easier to pin down on past underbillings since their buildings have changed little over the years and because township officials are better acquainted with their sewer usage. Three municipal buildings, in fact, fall into that category. They were on the list of 75 • users which received revised 1985 sewer nills Earlier this month. Lower's councilmen agreed to pay the MUA $474.12 in undercharges on the municipal police station. Villas, another $70.20 for the nearby Recreation Center and $63 more for the town-ship-owned Joseph Millman Community^ Center.