the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, readers Continue to take issue with Ridgewood Water on receiving the “Our Water’s Worth It” award! This recognition highlights the company’s contributions to water conservation and sustainability efforts. The following is an email sent out to the Village Manager and the Village council .
Council and Village Manager,
You have an obligation to keep residents safe and being truthful in our water quality is not a nice to have but a must have. We applaud the hard work by the water division, includi
ng the new facility plants, but at some point tangible outcomes and changes in water quality do matter. We have had 10 years of poor water quality and false promises that our water would be clean by 2023, now we are looking at 2026.
It is very misleading to residents and the public, to accept an award where in their campaign materials speak of fresh water, access to clean drinking water and healthy waterways – but in fact – for 14 consecutive quarters, starting in 2021 thru 1H 2024, the water quality has exceeded the MCL requirements related to PFOS and PFOA. Meaning, we are in violation of the NJ drinking water standards. Here are a few sample sights that prove this point. We should not be accepting this award in good faith.
- Legal disclosure and notifications from RW Water to residents can be found here https://water.ridgewoodnj.net/quarterlynotices/
- Tap into Ridgewood article RW Water releases 2023 Testing Results https://www.tapinto.net/towns/ridgewood/sections/government/articles/ridgewood-water-releases-2023-testing-results
- https://www.tapinto.net/towns/ridgewood/sections/government/articles/ridgewood-water-rewarded-by-njdep-for-pfas-reduction-efforts
- The Mayor is quoted, “Ridgewood Water is a national leader in maintaining the highest levels of safe drinking water” .
Further clarification is provided from the VC minutes https://archive.ridgewoodnj.net/clerk-minutes/3912-20220228-village-council-special-public-budget-meeting-minutes 02/28/2022
- Mr. Calbi explained that the utility is at a pinnacle point in dealing with the PFAS treatment. They are breaking ground on a lot of the bigger projects. The Carr treatment plant has been in operation since 2019 and remains in operation. The Twinney treatment plant is under construction (2nd of 12 plants to be constructed). The Ravine/Marr and Carr/Linwood treatment facilities are to be publicly bid out by mid-July 2022. The four larger treatment facilities (Ames, Prospect, Cedar Hill and Wortendyke) are undergoing final engineering design and will be publicly bid out in the first quarter of 2023. The remaining plants (Eastside, East Ridgewood, Main, Mountain and West End) are under preliminary design. The majority of the water will be PFAS-free by the end of 2023
Dec 2018 VC Minutes https://archive.ridgewoodnj.net/clerk-minutes/2342-20180912-village-council-public-meeting
- Mr. Calbi stated that Ridgewood Water collected samples during 2014 and 2015 as part of an on-going study to determine the general occurrence of unregulated contaminants. He stated that PFOA is widespread in the system, and there is very little concern with PFOS and none with PFNA. Shut down Carr and add new treatment facility by 2019. ($3M) Mr. Calbi stated that Ridgewood Water can elect to do that, but there are many contaminants that Ridgewood Water falls below the level on, and it is how far Ridgewood Water can financially afford to pursue treatment
So many questions.
-Why was Ridgewood chosen for this award first?
-Is it because Kazmark is friends with NJDEP Commissioner LaTourette?
-Is Vagianos friends with Mr. Latourette?
-Was this a political stunt to help Ridgewood look good getting an award when he is up for re-election?
This brings about many questions about who knows who and who knows what and WHAT is really going on?
That photo looks extra cringey where you have Winograd literally sandwiched between Calbi and Kamark. A little personal distance is in order here. I guess when you have to squeeze in all of the posers for this oh so fake award, you gotta crram yourself in there at any cost.
Remember to vote NO to Vagianos and Mortimer.
A dangerous due who will create more of a doom spiral for Ridgewood with their special interest projects.
We should all send our Ready Refresh bills to the Mayor. Drinking our valued water is, by their own admission, dangerous to our health. Shame!
Yeah it is the bad and ugly alright. This bunch of posers from Ridgewood scare the beJesus outta me. The constant spinning of their dangerous, health impacting web of lies is not only deceiptful it is downright unethical.
Keith Karmark is a true politician, through and through and it could not be made more obvious or to use his words, clear, cystal clear actually, because of what he said on Wednesday regarding the how and why of Ridgewood’s award from the NJDEP now several weeks ago
“Ridgewood didn’t ask for this award, the DEP decided that we were going to be the first recipient of the award, but if you want a crystal clear visual reason why we received that award, go on our social media outlets and see the posts that we put out today. where we received 8 vessels at the Prospect ststion down by the water pollution treatment facility where you have this massive cranes installing these PFAS treatment vessels, there could be no more clear reason for NJDEP to select Ridgewood water than watching that reel on social media”. “That is the work that Rich Calbi and his team at Ridgwood Water are doing every day, with our contractors, to build out a state-of-the-art water treatment facility to take PFAS out of our water by 2026”
He then went on to say that COVID was why this was delayed. Was t epublic made aware of this. First I am hearing of it. Mayor had time to get schematics on a giant bal field and yet PFAS as he put it is “everywhere”. This just doesn’t sit right. Vagianos is a like a dog in hear that needs to be sent away on an extended vacation while we find a new mayor who won’t drive Ridgewood into the ground.
Calbi has to go – he’s had his chance for the last 15 years. He has 40 people working for him, doing what I am not sure, but I guess that explains the $1M purchase of the VFW building. 100’s of thousands of dollars on trucks and $200M to try to fix the PFAS. Why is the water we are pumping in from Passaic (of all places. oh what that is woodland park area, home of KK) clean and free of PFAS and RW is still in violation? Sell the utility.