| End the raw sewage
By THE JOURNAL NEWS The sewer district must now pay a $10,000 fine, while an additional $10,000 will be waived if the district complies fully with a remediation order. Most of the 40 spills occurred when it rained and water entered the sewer system and caused it to overflow, reports staff writer Laura Incalcaterra. This is an ancient system, the only county sewer district, built principally to serve the towns of Ramapo and Clarkstown in the 1960s and early 1970s, long before explosive development occurred, particularly in Ramapo, where zoning violations have produced illegal housing in the Monsey area. Add to that growth old piping and technology, illegal hookups, including basement sump pumps, storm water infiltration, pumping equipment that fails and electrical outages and you have raw sewage coming out of manholes in such places as South Monsey Road whenever there is a flash rain. The irony is that Rockland, blessed with underground aquifers, could use the storm water and sump discharge, which now is routed at great cost to the county sewer treatment plant in Orangeburg and then to the Hudson River. Or you see raw sewage on the streets or in waterways such as the Saddle River. The latter makes people who live along that river understandably angry, including those in posh Upper Saddle River, N.J. The DEC has worked with Sewer District No. 1 as it tries to determine the problems and the fixes. The agency and district have entered into a consent order to make sure repairs and upgrades happen. The agreement requires the district to submit detailed plans, including designs and a timetable for completing the job, but not until July 2007. That's too liberal a time frame. It's not like the district does not know its own history. This situation did not develop overnight. Immediate action can be taken, such as natural gas-fired generators, new pumps and a mailing to all property owners that illegal hookups must end, including sump pumps, or stiff fines and actual service shutoff will occur. Julius Graifman, chairman of the sewer district's board of commissioners, says all requirements would be met, that the district intends to install flow meters to pin down where the extra water is coming from. It will also check the grout around manhole covers to make sure no rain water is able to infiltrate them. He told The Journal News that many of the spills "are so minor" and that people opposed to a religious group's project on Hillside Avenue were trying to use the sewer district as a tool to halt the project. That may be so, but you cannot ignore raw sewage on the street. Upper Saddle River borough officials aren't, having advised the sewer district in March that they must repair sewer lines or face a lawsuit, contending that spills have been documented and so have discharges into the federally protected Saddle River. A longtime Airmont resident told The Journal News that he has often raised concern about the problem with the village, the sewer district and the Town of Ramapo and is pleased that the DEC is looking at the situation. So are we. Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, who is also a sewer district commissioner, may finally have begun to address the issue. We hope so. As Ramapo resident Michael Castelluccio notes, the situation is now under review only because neighbors raised their voices and demanded action by all parties, even the state. Castelluccio has particular interest as a member of Preserve Ramapo, which opposes St. Lawrence on the grounds that he has helped allow overdevelopment throughout the town, but the fact is raw sewage on the street is beyond politics. Get this fixed, all parties. Especially find and shut down the illegal hookups.
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