The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
Picking up after pets is one of those household responsibilities that no one enjoys but everyone understands is necessary. Still, there are many misconceptions floating around about what it means to use a pooper scooper or hire a service to handle the task.
Continue reading Debunking the Top Myths About Using a Pooper Scooper
Continue reading Ridgewood Water’s “spoil pile” – Dumped at Schedler despite known Contamination?
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Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood Mayor Paul Vagianos responded to residents concern over soil contamination at both Habernickel Park and the Schedler property. The Mayor stated as part of the Village’s ongoing efforts to enhance our parks, improvement projects are planned for Habernickel Park and the Schedler property. During preparations for these projects, we discovered that both sites have areas of contaminated soil.
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Ridgewood NJ, this sign is posted at the former Town Garage property on Franklin Avenue.
Continue reading A Trifecta in Ridgewood – Contamination found at 3 parks; 2 existing and 1 planned
the staff of the Ridgewood Blog
Ridgewood NJ, over the weekend we could not help but notice signs springing up over town. On August 31st we reported that a new sign had sprung up at the historic Zabriskie-Schedler Property from Matrix New World an environmental engineering firm hired by the Village to test all the “free soil” dumped on the property to create the berm .
Continue reading Sign, Sign Everywhere a Sign: “Free Dirt” May Not be So Free After All
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Ridgewood NJ, plans to construct an artificial turf field at the historic Zabriskie-Schedler House in Ridgewood have been indefinitely put on hold after soil tests revealed significant contamination. The soil, which had been used to build a noise reduction berm, was found to contain hazardous substances, including lead, mercury, and two probable carcinogens: Benz(a)Anthracene and Benz(a)pyrene.
What is Fill Material?
Ridgewood NJ, in general, “fill” refers to the material placed on land to fill low areas, modify contours, stabilize existing grades, or raise the grade of a location. Typically, fill includes soils, sands, and clays. However, it can also contain non-water-soluble, non-decomposable, inert solids such as rock, gravel, brick, block, concrete, glass, and ceramic products, provided they do not qualify as solid waste according to the Solid Waste Rules at N.J.A.C. 7:26-1.6(a)6. For our purposes, the terms “soil” and “fill” are interchangeable.
Continue reading Understanding Fill Material: NJ Guidelines and Best Practices
Photos by Boyd Loving
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Ridgewood NJ, the Ridgewood Board of Education approved the vendor contracts to complete the necessary clean-up work on the athletic fields due to recent flooding. This work began yesterday on the stadium field at Ridgewood High School, where at least four truckloads of dirt and debris were removed from the field. The work on the RHS stadium field is expected to take a couple of weeks, and once that field is completed, the vendor will begin to work on Stevens field. The work on the Brookside field is scheduled to begin today and should be completed in a few days. The fields are being disinfected as part of the process.
Continue reading RHS Stadium and Stevens Field Clean-up Begins
By Dino Flammia May 1, 2017 2:00 AM
The lives of more than 80 wildlife species in New Jersey are either in immediate danger or close to it.
Bobcats, bald eagles and multiple species of snake, sea turtles and birds should have a healthy presence in the Garden State, but they’re struggling to survive, according to the latest endangered and threatened list from the state Division of Fish & Wildlife.
The database describes endangered species as those whose prospects for survival in New Jersey are bleak “because of a loss or change in habitat, over-exploitation, predation, competition, disease, disturbance or contamination.” Threatened species may become endangered if conditions around them begin to or continue to worsen.
Several species on New Jersey’s list are endangered federally as well.
The piping plover, a small shorebird on both the state and national list, is considered “one of New Jersey’s most endangered species,” according to the division. “Without intense protection and management, it is unlikely that the piping plover would survive in New Jersey,” the species description states.
Read More: Dozens of these wildlife species in NJ could be headed for extinction | https://nj1015.com/dozens-of-nj-wildlife-species-could-be-headed-for-extinction/?trackback=tsmclip
Contamination at the Town Garage was well known to the purchasers who rushed to beat the Village in buying the land–hoping to make a substantial profit when they then sold it to the Village. They own it. It should be their responsibility for cleaning it up before selling it to the Village at a handsome profit. Is the Village going to subtract the cost of cleanup from the eventual purchase price? Or are we paying a premium to purchase the land and then must add cleanup costs to that? The lawyer groups were in such a rush to buy–why aren’t they being forced to do the cleanup? A homeowner with a leaking oil tank can’t just pass that cost on to the buyer, so why are we cleaning up land we don’t own?
