By JOHN T. WARD

Mark Lockwood spent the night on his boat at the Shrewsbury River Yacht Club in Fair Haven Friday, and woke to the sight of a Navesink River gone brown. The worst kind of brown, he thought.

Though it didn’t smell, it appeared to be human waste, he said.

“It was disgusting,” he told a Fair Haven police officer who’d come to the club to investigate Saturday evening. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve been on this river all my life.”

Ben Hamilton, whose home abuts the club property, said he had never seen anything like it, either.

But whatever they saw, it wasn’t from the town’s sanitary sewer, said an official with the regional sewerage authority that serves the borough. And it may have been pollen.

“We can guarantee that the Two Rivers Water Reclamation Authority pipe isn’t leaking,” TRWRA commissioner and yacht club member Bill Baarck told redbankgreen Saturday night, referring to a waste pipe that runs just beneath the Navesink River shore from Gillespie Avenue east to the yacht club, where it meets a pumping station.

“But we can’t guarantee that tides and winds haven’t brought in pollutants from elsewhere, over which we have no control,” he said.

Though he said he had not seen the brown tide himself, other recent reports of human waste — one on the Metedeconk River, and one at a location he could not immediately recall —  turned out to be vast collections of dead pollen on the water, Baarck said.

An authority inspector investigated the Navesink report and found no sign of leakage along the beach, either from the buried pipeline or the several manhole-topped access holes along its length, he said.

The entire stretch of pipe, which is about 40 years old, is scheduled to be replaced soon, with heavy construction equipment slated for delivery to the beach via the yacht club’s ramp as early as Monday. Baarck said the work is preventative.

Mayor Ben Lucarelli tells redbankgreen that a recent video inspection of the pipe found river water infiltrating the system at the foot of Gillespie Avenue, but that no sewage was getting into the river.

“It’s in weak condition,” Baarck said, and was one reason the authority sought and obtained state Department of Environmental Protection permits to replace the piping with a new system.

The new pipes will be laid next the existing pipes and, when completed, a cut-over from old system will be scheduled for the middle of the night to prevent any waste from getting into the river, he said.

Lockwood and Hamilton said the brown stuff appeared to have come from the west, based on Saturday’s winds. Baarck said that while the authority ruled out the Fair Haven system as its source, he could not rule out the possibility that it had come from the Red Bank system.

Lockwood and other club members said they sometimes see post-storm waste from the Middletown side of the river, where mansions along Navesink River Road are not hooked into a sewer and rely instead on septic tanks. But Saturday’s brown blob was far larger, they told redbankgreen.

Long-overdue repairs to the Red Bank are now “hitting the express track” with the installation of a slate roof, the Asbury Park Press reports Tuesday.
From the Press:

NJ Transit spokeswoman Nancy Snyder said the new roof is the first of several improvements to come this year at the old station.

In the first phase, budgeted at $800,000, the entire roof will be replaced – work expected to be complete by mid-May, Snyder said. The existing “gingerbread” trim will also be replaced during this phase, she said.

NJ Transit officials are putting out a request for proposals this summer for the second phase, expected to start in mid- to late fall, Snyder said. That work will consist of restoring the remainder of the station, including stripping old paint, painting the building and improving the waiting room.

The circa-1876 station, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was renamed in honor of the late Red Bank mayor and state Supreme Court Justice Daniel O’Hern last August.

Fair Haven Fields, opposite Rumson’s Meadowridge Park on Ridge Road, would be maintained by Rumson under the deal.  (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Three years after the wheels came off a politically charged plan to merge the police forces of three area towns, two of them have found another, less contentious route into shared services.

Fair Haven and Rumson have agreed to provide key maintenance services to one another in what they’re billing as a “groundbreaking” deal announced Wednesday morning.

Under terms of the deal, Rumson will dump its residential brush at Fair Haven’s processing center and get engineering services for small jobs from Fair Haven’s in-house engineering office.

Fair Haven, meanwhile, will no longer maintain its own parks and other borough-owned properties, handing off that responsibility to its neighbor to the east, Rumson Mayor John Ekdahl tells redbankgreen.

Rumson will also provide street-sweeping and storm sewer catch-basin cleaning services to Fair Haven under the deal.

“The big pickup for us is brush,” said Ekdahl. He said borough DPW trucks made some 500 trips to a farm in Tinton Falls last year to dispose of residential brush, with each round-trip taking about an hour and a half, consuming gallons of gas and putting wear-and-tear on costly vehicles.

Under the agreement, “we cut that trip down to seven minutes,” he said. “For us, that’s the sweet spot of this deal.”

The number of trips typically number between 350 and 400, but was boosted by the cleanup after Tropical Storm Irene last August, he said.

Though Fair Haven will wind down its DPW operations, no jobs will be lost as a result of the deal in either town, Ekdahl said.

The pact, billed as an expansion of an agreement under which the two towns shared building inspection services, arose from regular discussions between their business administrators – Theresa Casagrande in Fair Haven and Tom Rogers in Rumson – Ekdahl said.

Official discussions began about six weeks ago, when Mike Halfacre was still Fair Haven’s mayor, and continued “without interruption,” Ekdahl said, after Ben Lucarelli replaced Halfacre, who resigned to take a job in the Christie Administration.

Lucarelli could not be reached for immediate comment, but in the press release called the deal “a wonderful opportunity that will benefit the residents of both of our communities.”

Rumson will also have access to the services of Fair Haven Engineer Rich Gardella for projects such as upgrades on the Rumson DPW facility. Rumson will continue to retain T&M Associates of Middletown as the consultant to its council and planning and zoning boards, Ekdahl said.

Ekdahl said the savings to taxpayers under the agreement, which is expected to begin early next month, “will be hard to quantify until we’ve had about a year of experience.”

He said Fair Haven would be able to avoid the purchase of a street sweeper, which costs about $500,000, and that savings on gasoline, labor and other costs associated with Rumson’s brush removal would be significant.

Here’s the press release issued by the two towns: Press Release – Interlocal Agreement

Here’s the Fair Haven resolution: FH Resolution

And here’s Rumson’s: Rumson Resolution

State Senator Jennifer Beck with the offending gas pressure valve on Broad Street Wednesday. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

[SEE UPDATE TO THIS STORY AT THE BOTTOM]

Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna and 11th-District state Senator Jennifer Beck teed up New Jersey Natural Gas Wednesday for a plan to install emergency venting devices in front of downtown storefronts.

Labeling them “Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Vandals,” the historically inclined mayor blasted unnamed NJNG officials for a “tyrannical decision to put in these horse hitches,” he said at a midday press conference outside Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash on Broad Street, where one of the offending valves was installed a year ago.

The devices, now located beneath the sidewalks in access holes covered with steel plates, are used to prevent surges in gas pressure into stores, restaurants and apartments by venting excess pressure through small, unobtrusive pipes located against storefonts, said borough Administrator Stanley Sickels.

The gas company, officials said, insists that the devices must now be brought above ground for safety reasons, saying that they’re prone to deterioration from salt and other ice-melting products.

But local officials said that over a year of conversations with NJNG, company officials have refused to provide any inspection data demonstrating that the underground devices are a problem. The only instance of a leak in the past 20 years occurred outside the former home of David Levine Salon, and was addressed by creating a new and better-sealed access hole, Sickels said.

Town officials object to the plan to replace 88 such valves in the business district with above-ground devices, 82 of which they said would abut storefronts. They cited both aesthetic and safety concerns.

“This solution is frankly an intrusion to the downtown that we’ve spent millions to upgrade,” said Beck, a former borough council member who maintains a legislative office on Monmouth Street. The exposed valves could also be damaged by skateboards, snow shovels and accidents involving cars that jump curbs, officials said.

Beck said NJNG “would not share any information about other options, but my instinct is that there are plenty of other options.”

Calling the company’s approach “heavy-handed,” she said, “I don’t understand the need for secrecy when they are talking about invading our public space.”

“We have a genuine concern for the aesthetic value of the downtown as well as the safety issue,” said Councilman Ed Zipprich.

Beck said she plans to introduce legislation Thursday to force the utility to install new underground enclosures with tight-fitting covers.

Officials said they did not know of other towns that had dealt with the issue.

[UPDATE: Mike Kinney, a spokesman for NJNG parent New Jersey Resources who was not available for comment when the original version of this article was published, said NJNG filed suit Wednesday in state Superior Court in Freehold against the borough and Red Bank RiverCenter seeking to force the borough to issue permits for the valve replacement work. The town refused to issue the permits in late February, said Kinney.

The denial of the permits was not mentioned by town officials during Wednesday's press conference.

Kinney said the issue is one of safety raised by corrosion of below-ground valves. In its court filings, the company maintains that "accelerated atmospheric corrosion" of the underground valves "creates a significant risk of a catastrophic gas leak" and that the borough's objection to the work is "for purely aesthetic reasons."

In its coverage area of Monmouth, Ocean and Morris counties, NJNG had 280 underground valves in 17 towns to replace, Kinney said. So far, 144 have been replaced in Asbury Park, Atlantic Highlands, Freehold and elsewhere he said, without any other towns refusing to issue permits. Of the 136 remaining valves designated for replacement, 88 are in Red Bank, he said.

Kinney tells redbankgreen that the company is sensitive to the look of the downtown streetscape, and has worked with the business community in Asbury Park to obscure the valves with planters and other measures. "But when it comes to well-being and aesthetics, we're going to choose safety every time," he said.

Here's a copy of each of the two court filings: Verified Complaint 03-14-12 and Memorandum of Law in 03-14-12.

Here's a FAQ prepared by the company, complete with photos showing corrosion to underground valves: NJNG FAQ 031412]

By JOHN T. WARD

Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna says it looks like “an airport runway,” and he’s not the only one who marvels at the candlepower along River Road in neighboring Fair Haven.

Resident Ruth Blaser wonders, “Did the town engineer go to a closeout sale for streetlamps and say, ‘I’ll take them all?’”

The sarcasm, however, may be in for a dial-back soon – at least as it regards late-night travel along the road.

The 73 old-fashioned lamps lining the town’s main drag from Smith Street to Elm Place are the most visible elements of a recent streetscape makeover funded by $886,000 in federal stimulus money that ex-Mayor Mike Halfacre opposed but sought on the borough’s behalf. The pricetag also bought new sidewalks, curbs, benches and trashcans.

Now, the overall runway effect is in for a dimming.

The lamps were installed with the capability of being turned on and off individually, said borough Administrator Theresa Casagrande. But an issue involving a utility pole that had to be removed prevented the option from being available, she said.

That problem has either been fixed or is about to be, and soon, every other light will be shut off after 11 p.m., she said.

redbankgreen was unable to find out how many lamps the new ones replaced. But the new ones, said Casagrande, spread their light over a smaller area than their predecessors.

How much do they cost to operate? Less than the old streetlamps, it appears. Bills for the comparable June-through-mid-November period for 2010, when the old lights were still used, and 2011, when all the new ones were in, show a drop in electricity costs for the borough to just under $46,000, from slightly more than $60,000.

The bills, however, include non-streeet-lighting expenses and other variables that may have accounted for some of the difference, Casagrande said.

A blown transformer on Wharf Avenue in Red Bank knocked out power to nearby traffic lights Tuesday morning.

A repair crew was reported on the scene at 10:24 a.m, 25 minutes after the first report that a cable was down outside 11 Wharf.

Police and fire police were on the scene directing traffic at the affected traffic lights at Broad and Front streets and Broad and Globe Court.

A spokesman for Riverview Medical Center said the hospital was on a backup power supply during the outage.

A plan to convert the Colony House failed, leading to a return to rentals, and new-tenant complaints about jacked-up rents. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Following a pattern reported on by redbankgreen back in June, the owner of the Colony House apartments has continued to illegally raise rents on tenants, some of whom may be afraid to pursue legal recourse, members of the Red Bank Rent Leveling Board said Thursday.

At their monthly meeting in a nearly empty council chambers, board members said that about eight residents had filed formal complaints in recent months alleging that the landlord, Park Ridge LLC of Lakewood, had rescinded incentive discounts given to new tenants since 2009, and then imposed cost-of-living improvements on the new base rent.

Only the cost-of-living adjustments are permitted under the borough rent ordinance, said board attorney Gene Anthony.

“We had three complaints in September alone,” said board chairman Vincent Light.

Colony House resident Brenda Dellutri, who lives on the first floor of the eight-story red brick structure with her 81-year-old mother, appeared at the meeting at the behest of a neighbor to ask about her legal options after Park Ridge boosted her rent by $50 a month.

“If you feel you’ve had an illegal increase, you should file a complaint with the board,” Anthony told her. “There’s been quite a few.”

Not all of the complaints wind up getting aired out, however, as tenants often fail to appear at the hearings. And board members are convinced that there are tenants afraid of retaliation who keep quiet.

Dellutri told the board she was among them, concerned about being displaced with an elderly mother to care for.

“Can he evict me?” she asked.

“Absolutely not,” Anthony replied.

The landlord could, in fact, face a criminal charge for violating a tenant’s right to challenge the increase and to inform other tenants, Light told her.

A call to Park Ridge’s office was not immediately returned Friday morning.

Board members say they don’t know who runs the building. When there are complaints heard by the board, the same man always appears, but because he’s never been sworn to testify, board members don’t know his name.

“He humbly accepts our findings” but doesn’t curtail the practice, Anthony said. “He always has a justification, and says he’ll come back at the next meeting with an accountant, but doesn’t.”

The spate of complaints follows a failed attempt by the building owner to convert the structure to $500,000-and-up condos, an effort that was derailed in 2008 when the zoning board found the project would have exacerbated a “severe lack of available parking.” An appeal of the ruling was upheld by a state Superior Court and, last February, a state Appeals Court.

Anthony said the most effective action tenants can take is to file complaints. A tenant who wins is entitled to collect reimbursement for unwarranted payments going back a year from the date of a complaint.

“If every single tenant affected by this got a reimbursement, I think that would would be enough,” he said. “That would get his attention.”