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WANAQUE - Addice Park fields deemed free of contaminants
(by Teresa Edmond - Staff Writer - September 03, 2008)
WANAQUE - The soils at the under-renovation Wanaque School and Addice Park fields don’t need to be tested for contaminants, it was announced at a Lakeland Regional High School (LRHS) Board of Education meeting.
LRHS officials wanted to investigate testing the soils because they didn’t want to end up in the same pollution plight other school districts have suffered, such as Paramus. Residents of that Bergen County community accused their school district officials last year of knowing but never reporting that pesticides had contaminated West Brook Middle School’s soil. Superintendent Janice Dime left her position because of the controversy, and West Brook’s grounds were subsequently cleaned up.
The Wanaque School and Addice Park fields are being transformed into playing fields that the municipality, the Wanaque School District and LRHS will share once the $1.2 million project is complete. Borough Administrator Tom Carroll said previously that the fields should be remodeled before next spring – just in time for softball season – and next autumn for fall sports. The borough will use the fields for recreation and the Wanaque district and LRHS will use it for athletics.
At the Aug. 26 school board meeting, LRHS Superintendent Albert Guazzo read a July 31 e-mail Carroll submitted to Kinsey Associates Information, a Hackettstown-based park and recreation consultant. On behalf of LRHS, Carroll asked Kinsey if the Addice Park soils are being tested for contaminants. Due to the summer schedule, the Aug. 26 meeting was the first time the Board of Education met since July to discuss this e-mail in public.
Carroll sent out his e-mail after the July 29 LRHS school board meeting, when school board member Earl Axelrod of Ringwood raised concerns about the Wanaque School and Addice Park soils possibly being contaminated. He had these concerns because if the soils aren’t tested, the high school could end up in the same predicament as Paramus School District, he said.
Kinsey Associates President L. John Belle replied to the July 31 e-mail the same day, saying that the soils don’t need to be examined for contaminants.
“There is no requirement for on-site testing,” he wrote back. “This should have been done before the area was disturbed. As it stands now it will temporarily stop the job.”
Belle’s response furthermore states that the dirt’s whereabouts have “certified sources,” which proves that the soils are safe. Guazzo said he’d ask Belle for such proof and file the e-mail response.
According to Guazzo in separate interview, nothing directly happened on either the Wanaque School or Addice Park fields he’s “aware of that would cause concern for contamination.”
Axelrod said on Aug. 26 that testing the soils could spare borough and school officials a lot of grief and also avoids a scandal similar to the Paramus School District’s.
“I would not like to be on this board five years from now and they discover there’s – pick any chemical you like – in the field and then someone says, ‘Didn’t you know about it?’ And we’d say, ‘I believe we were reassured by somebody,’ and we’re sitting here like (officials) in Paramus looking like morons,” he said, adding that he’d like to see written confirmation that the soils are clean.
Guazzo said that he somewhat agrees with Axelrod about ensuring the soils are contaminant free, but said that Paramus school officials knew the danger they had put their students in with the polluted earth.
“There’s a lesson to be learned from Paramus in a situation like this. But they had contaminated soil and they knew it was there and didn’t move it from there … which is a slightly different situation,” he said.
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