This just came out today. Click on the link below.
There is a letter from the BOE President and Interim Superintendent that discusses what they found in the Orchard School soil. It’s not good. They have scheduled a mtg tomorrow night at BF middle school for the public. Also, this morning they fenced off the entire Orchard School field. No one is allowed on it. They may be finally owning up to what I always thought was a tainted situation that no one wanted to deal with.
BREAKING NEWS Ridgewood Public Schools has just received laborotory results for soil samples collected at the Orchard School this summer. For complete details, please click on link. – Orchard Soil Test Results
>The letter also said they found LEAD in the soil.
Was the field made in China?
Can we recall it?
Better yet, let’s recall this entire BOE. They knew for months, years that this soil had serious problems and they did as little as possible, hoping not to alarm people. Now there is an emergency meeting tomorrow and they are moving next monday’s BOE mtg to a different venue, maybe Paramus…
Sounds like a big problem to me.
And Orchard kids have no field on which to play–starting on the first day of school, no less.
>Before Orchard built their latest addition parents complained about the toxic soil. As I recall, boe members were very defensive … they didn’t want to listen to the parents, their constituents.
Those members who were sitting on the board at that time must step down immediately. They are not worthy of their positions.
>Have these tested ALL of the fields in the district for this kind of stuff?
>Let’s see what kind of spin the board members put on this so that they can SAVE THEIR ASSES!!
>My goodness…you Ridgewood bloggers just LOVE to get all worked up. Did you read the letter? If your kid is eating dirt for an “extended period of time” then you have bigger problems than the soil.
>Hey PJ, the new schools POI can’t spell. She spelled laboratory as laborotory.
Can she use spell check or would that cost us extra?
>Orchard has already been listed as near a Superfund site. Didn’t they clean it up?
RIDGEWOOD VILLAGE
RIDGEWOOD ASH FILL
ORCHARD PLACE
NJD986639904
I remember reading about this as a superfund but thinking it was cleaned up.
>Bombace knew of this before the new addition at Orchard was ever built. So did Porter, Hutton, Brogan and the chief bloviator, Charlie Reilly.
The members of the BOE who knew should resign for lying to parents.
So much for the “lunatic fringe” being wrong.
Who are the lunatics now?
>For information on the health and environmental impact of PAH’s look at:
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts69.html#bookmark02
Does anyone know what the land that Orchard School’s playing field was used for in the past?
>I remember that the parents who brought the soil issue to the forefront two years ago did their homework and informed the community that there were unanswered questions regarding the soil. The boe and the hsa made light of the whole thing and went ahead and did what they wanted anyway. That parent, frances edwards, is no stranger to controversy, having unearthed a lot of underhandedness in the district. She was dismissed by the establishment and attacked in the ridgewood news by susan sherrill for trying to get the problem attended to. So they spent all that money on orchard field and today, it’s closed down. Whose money are they going to spend next to make it usable again? Now they will have to remove the bad soil…all of it. that’s very expensive.
How wasteful and stupid of our BOE. They should all go.
>yes, the soil at all schools should be tested…..this is very scary…..
>3:16 PM
This upsets me because my child does not eat dirt but they might have been in school while construction was moving the toxic dirt into the air. Therefore they were exposed to toxins in their lungs.
We live in a toxic world but the construction on an addition on an elementary school or its fields should go through a due diligence process that will guarantee that children are not exposed to toxins.
I don’t think that’s too much to ask of a public school system in a wealthy town, do you?
>If your kid is eating dirt for an “extended period of time” then you have bigger problems than the soil.
well we have a BOE that is eating CROW “extended period of time” and your right we have a bigger problem
>If your kid is eating dirt for an “extended period of time” then you have bigger problems than the soil.
love the comment who gives a sh*t about the kids anyway if we cnat make anything off the transaction egh?
>yes kids are only important if we can raise TAXES
>Oh, God forbid the kids have no place to play on the first day of school!!!! Snobs!!!!
>God forbid the kids have no place to play
yes God Forbid the BOE does its job keeping the environment safe for children…I know its not as important as raising salaries, taxes and hiring cronies and fools
>5:35 – Think again if you believe this will be limited to the first day of school. Where did you grow up that only the privileged class had a place to play?
>WOW!!!! ohhh my god, the soil is tainted. I think we should just impload the school fence off the entire area and consider it a hazardous site. And while we are at it, let’s just check the soil in each of your backyards. I bet we might find a little more than some coal and lead. But i suppose this is the BOE’s fault in some way. I guess it is just too far fetched to think that someone other than the boe has any respoosibilty for anything to do with our schools, the students, the faculty, or the dirt in this town. So let’s just get rid of the BOE and the schools, we will save a hell of a lot in taxes!!!
>Does anyone have any actual concentrations for contaminants tested?
Lead is usually associated with PAHs. Ever hear of leaded petroleum??? Tar?? Old blacktop perhaps? etc. Organics particulates left by incomplete combustion.
Does anyone know if these are based upon residential or non-residential criteria? In any case, all NJDEP criteria or conservative by orders of magnitude. They criteria are extremely, and I mean extremely, conservative with respect to humal health risk. They take into account unrealistic scenerios such as you camp out on a pile of PAHs for 365 days a year, never leave the site, live there for 25 years and add several teaspoons of the soil to your coffee each morning.
Let me put it to you this way. Just because something contains a contaminant of concern does not mean it it “contaminated”. That is usually a matter of dose/response/time or acute/chronic toxicity. As an analogy, just because our bodies contain fat does not mean we are “fat”. If we eat to many donuts over time, we become obese — an adverse chronic condition. If we eat a donut occasionally, then it’s no big deal.
Personally, I’m heading over to BFMS tomorrow to hear what they have to say. Anyone attending should ask what standard the tests are being compared to and what were the backround levels for nearby areas. What were test, reference and control concentration for all contaminants of concern? What exposure routes were the students subjected to and for how long? Why wasn’t a communications strategy put into place and why were earlier complaints of parents ignored?
If the BOE scr@wed up on this one, I’d love to put the nail in their coffin!
>WOW!!!! ohhh my god, the soil is tainted. I think we should just impload the school fence off the entire area and consider it a hazardous site. And while we are at it, let’s just check the soil in each of your backyards. I bet we might find a little more than some coal and lead. But i suppose this is the BOE’s fault in some way. I guess it is just too far fetched to think that someone other than the boe has any respoosibilty for anything to do with our schools, the students, the faculty, or the dirt in this town. So let’s just get rid of the BOE and the schools, we will save a hell of a lot in taxes!!!
like I said kids are only important if we can (use them to) raise TAXES
>6:20 – If the BOE members knew about this then it is their fault for not communicating with the public. Someone obviously had a concern or else the tests would not have been performed. Any concern whatsoever should have been communicated to the public. If I had known there was a concern at Orchard, I would have taken my kids to play at another field during the summer. We elect BOE members to protect the interests of our children and it is a disgrace if they do not fulfill this basic obligation.
>Time to clean up the school district. Get rid of the toxic dirt. Get rid of Bombace, Brogan, and Hutton. Thank God we already got rid of Reilly.
>We should hand each of the board members a shovel and let them clean up the contaminated soil. Former board member Charles Reilly should be given a shovel, too. They’re all contaminated anyway.
>6:45pm
“Someone obviously had a concern or else the tests would not have been performed.”
This is a good point.
Frances Edwards raised concerns and was ignored because she’s Frances and people ignore her even when she is right.
Plenty of Orchard parents knew the soil was contaminated, but thought it was cleaned up or nontoxic and would joke about it. (“Field of Apples my a@#$, it’s a Superfund site” ha, ha, ha.)
So why was this test done and when? What prompted this test and its findings to be released?
Dr. Brennen is in office for 3 weeks and tackles this issue almost immediately.
I would speculate that this is a bigger problem because the BOE is proactive on it now after ignoring it for years.
>Can you say CLASS ACTION SUIT?
How likely are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) to cause cancer?
The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has determined that some PAHs may reasonably be expected to be carcinogens.
Some people who have breathed or touched mixtures of PAHs and other chemicals for long periods of time have developed cancer. Some PAHs have caused cancer in laboratory animals when they breathed air containing them (lung cancer), ingested them in food (stomach cancer), or had them applied to their skin (skin cancer).
>How might I be exposed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)?
Coming in contact with air, water, or soil near hazardous waste sites.
>VILLAGE OF RIDGEWOOD
VILLAGE COUNCIL
REGULAR PUBLIC MEETING
SEPTEMBER 8, 2004
8:00 P.M.
04-232 Amend Professional Services Contract – Bellair Road Ash Landfill Remediation Project (Not to Exceed $11,000) – Amends the Professional Services Agreement with Leggette, Brashears, and Graham, Inc., 126 Monroe Turnpike, Trumbull, CT for site investigation and environmental permitting services for the Village Tennis Court (former PSE&G Gas Works/Bellair Ash Landfill site)
>You know, Orchard was a dump before it was a school. Can anyone hazard to guess what was allowed to be “dumped” in a dump 60 or more years ago?
And by the way, for the jerk who made fun of kids not having a place to play, this is not the first time in the past six years that the field has been off limits to the student body for an extended period of time.
But what the hey, they aren’t aloud to play tag, dodge ball or what we famously called “kill the guy with the ball” (a school yard version of rugby played on asphalt when I was a kid) so, why do they need a field anyway.
This is actually a good thing. Now our children can get even fatter and more obese due to a lack of exercise.
It ought to be fun watching the spin from the BOE at BF on Thursday night.
I wonder if any TV news crews will show up?
One can only hope. Unfortunately, this BOE is shameless and impossible to embarrass.
>Why is everyone freaking out? Did you read the letter? These are NOT pesticides like those at Westbrook. these are not an acute hazard like at Westbrook. You would have to EAT the soil over an extended period to experience the potential risk…why is everyone screaming about BREATHING the air, etc? Are you all scientists suddenly? I am concerned but I am also mature enough to get the facts, attend the meeting and THEN make judgments. The SKY is not FALLING people! Act like adults, why don’t you?
>Oh, that must be a trick question. Frances doesn’t take up issues on behalf of OUR children…only on behalf of HER children!
>She should only take up issues on behalf of HER children and if it BENEFITS yours show some gratitude
>11:18 PM Ya know what? Board members lie when they speak, they lie when they craft letters, they lie when they talk to the press, they just plain lie. I suppose you think the board members are scientists and you will probably hang on their every word. It’s people like you who never question authority and now look at the mess we’re in. Act like an adult, why don’t you?
>Frances Edwards and Joseph Alvaro are to be commended for truly caring about ALL the children’s safety and well-being. They worked tirelessly to educate the Orchard community and the board of education about the contaminated soil. What did they get in return? Grief.
For all those sycophants out there who have their lips hermetically sealed to the BOE members’ asses, you have failed your children miserably. You’re so worried about what others will think of you if you speak out … there is a name for people like you … SOCIAL SLUTS!
>Message to 11:18 p.m. Please stay away from children. You sound like you would be hazardous to their health.
>Board members have known about Orchard field contamination for at least a decade. They simply did not do what was necessary to make this field usable and safe. That’s just a fact, otherwise it would not be closed off to further use in its present condition.
Someone dropped the ball and worked hard to fool the public while they were at it. See, they do need a POI to craft sneaky letters and such.
>11:18 you must be a board member. who else could be so cavalier with our children’s future health. I know, you’re the leader of the “I care about the children” crowd.
>It is imperative that parents not only listen to what the board members say tonite, but also listen to what they do NOT say as well. Ask the tough questions.
>”For all those sycophants out there who have their lips hermetically sealed to the BOE members’ asses…”
You can add to that list: Susan Sherrill, editor of the Ridgewood News. She is “behind” the Ridgewood BOE 100% whether they are right or wrong. She is a disgrace as an editor.
>Here is a chance for Brogan, Bombace, Hutton and Vallerini to show some class. Step down from the Board. Same goes for the new gal if she goes along with them. We are better off without this group of !@#%&*?!!
>5:52 is right on target. I know many Orchard parents who really really care about their children as long as it doesn’t interfere with their social standing in town. I’ve never heard the term “social slut” before but it is befitting of these types of shallow parents.
>mebee fire chief bombace and little bro will have their firefighters suit up in hazmat gear and go clean up that frickin soil while they supervise.
>If the hsa were truly independent, they could have ensured our children’s safety. Instead, they did everything in their power to squash questions regarding the ash fill and our kids’ exposure to it. Look around at the HSA. It’s filled not only with Social Sluts, but Political Mercenaries.
Fricking useless “I care, care, care” idiots.
>If all parents were as vigilant as Edwards and Alvaro, we would have a kick-ass school district. I admire their perseverance.
>I do like that “social slut” tag… can I borrow it, or is it copyrighted?
Folks… Lets not lose focus on the issue here: There has been talk of contamination on that site for decades. I am new to Ridgewood, but I heard this and always wondered WHY they’d build a school there in the first place! I was told that there was a GE plant at that site years ago, and I connected the dots and assumed that they’d dumped into that little creek. Wasnt a crime way back when.
So… lets look at this with 2007 technology and get it fixed. Period.
As for the Board… I too think they do a terrible job. But I dont yet understand why they should resign over this. Maybe I’ll get more info at the meeting. Until that point? Lets focus on what likely is a serious issue. Keep the attacks out of this, at least for now. You only dilute your point.
Clean up Orchard. Heads can roll later on, but lets worry about the kids and the neighbors first!
>Does our school board even know the meaning of:
“Too little, too late?”
“Children come first.”
?????
>You’re just a wee bit sanctimonious aren’t you 8:11 AM?
>You admit that you are new to Ridgewood 8:11 so you really don’t know our board of education. Many of these posters have grown up in Ridgewood or have lived here for decades and know the sordid history of our boe. I suggest you listen and learn.
>https://www.state.nj.us/dep/srp/landfills/srp_landfill_list.pdf
Non-Operating Landfill List
NJDEP Site Remediation Program
Released: 12 July 2007
Updated: 12 July 2007
Note: The landfills described in this document are non-operating and historic landfills identified by, or reported to, the Department.
Working with local and regional environmental agencies, community representatives, and through review of historic materials the Site
Remediation Program is developing this inventory to prevent injury to human and ecological resources.
Maybe this list containing Orchard as still active prompted the soil testing. Why wasn’t this done when the field was updated two years ago?
>Dear 8:11
This is not a GE problem nor is it a problem of PSEG. In fact, PSEG had a plant near Orchard (now it is condos) and they undertook an amazing clean up of the site once it was converted to non-commercial use. A clean up example that continues to ELUDE our elected leaders.
The Orchard problem is that Orchard was a dump (was a farm way back when, so there are pesticides there as well). Primarily coal ash (used for heating homes) was dumped there for decades. This ash is super toxic, which is why it was declared a superfund site in the 70s/80s. The town and the boe knew all about this, but claimed they didn’t have the money to clean it up.
As for schools being built there…way back when, there were no rules prohibiting a school from being built on a toxic site. Now, of course, there are stringent rules and Orchard would NEVER have been permitted to be built there.
The reason why there is no “wait and see” attitude from many bloggers is because we know too well the history of this board’s behavior. After ignoring the problem for years, they then declared that it’s not really a problem and we shouldn’t be worried at all. Then they said, they cleaned it up, but did they do a thorough job? NO. They brought in some dirt and covered over some of the hot spots and called it a remediation. Why, because they declared, if it’s buried by enough dirt, it can’t hurt the kids. WRONG. Dirt naturally allows for seepage of toxins; it’s not concrete after all, and over time some of it can rise up towards the surface. WE know this and THEY knew this.
Now we are here. Go ahead, believe what they “say.” I am going to be listening to what they DON’T say. That will be the most telling.
As for eating truckloads of the stuff. For some people, just coming into contact with such toxins can lay the groundwork for later tumors in life. I guess you have to hope you are not unlucky. Same comfort as playing Russian Roulette. It’s only 1 bullet out of a possible 6 chances.