photo courtesy of the Village of Ridgewood
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, at Wednesday evening’s Village Council Meeting, Matrix New World Engineering presented a report on the soil testing results on the berm at the Schedler property (pictured). Matrix assured the Council that “there is no public health concern”, stating that three of the compounds found in the soil (lead, mercury and benz[a]anthracene) do not require any action or remediation.
Next steps: Matrix will finalize its report, do additional testing and analysis on the entire Schedler property and, if necessary, submit a plan for the remediation of benzo[a]pyrene (the fourth compound found in the soil) to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
In light of Matrix’s report, the Village Council voted unanimously to direct Village Manager Keith Kazmark to contact the State Historic Preservation Office and request that the park development application for the site be held in abeyance until the soil issues at Schedler are addressed.
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Village officials and Matrix Engineering are telling us not to panic. There is no immediate health hazard at Schedler they say.
But we can’t seem to forget what we were told about air quality near the World Trade Center. Said then EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman: “I am glad to reassure the people of New York … that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink.” 
No f’ing way I’d believe anything a firm being paid by Vagianos and company says.
Council members time to lawyer up.
And Matrix has a bridge they’d like to sell you as well.
And the check is in the mail.
Now the damage control and spin begins. Don’t buy it. The gig is up and this field project is dead.
Bend over, here it comes..
The orchestrated questioning by Vagianos was a little embarrassing.
I wonder how long they practiced for the meeting.
Somebody wrote them for him, he’s not that bright
Post of the day!
Although he no longer practices law, I don’t think you ever unlearn how to be a snake.
What a joke. That crew has absolutely zero credibility. They screwed up the entire notification process. They left voicemails for a guy who was on vacation and called the police department instead of calling the Village manager. What a joke
Are they resting Habernickel. I read that has toxins too?
Wow. Glad that’s settled. Everything’s fine. Let’s let the kids go out and play on the lead and mercury field. Will the soil glow under the lights?
Don’t believe this crew and their dog and pony show. Vagianos all along has been scheming, long before he was nominated, not elected, as mayor. He got Winograd and Weitz to run and donated to their campaigns. He got the sports crowd to vote them in. He was working with his good friend Gail Price’s historic “expert”, the shady consultant who wanted to move the house or reduce the validity of the historic designation. Vagianos knew about the dumping and just kept saying that the project had to move along and fast. He talked about a new proposed field and kept making it bigger and bigger and bigger. They knew that there was a possibility that the soil was contaminated but did nothing and here we are today. If you want to blame anyone, the light shines directly in the faces Vagianos, Winograd, Weitz and Perron. If they even had a tiny inckling that contaminated soil might exist, you do the right thing, but they didn’t want to slow down their hot mess express of a project. So here we are. In my opinion, it is a direct result of their neglect, turning a blind eye because they thought that they were so slick to fool the public. Now it will cost the village big bucks and may be years before this is fixed. On top of that, they secretly bought the Town Garage that the public found out about and oh yeah, another money pit that will need to be cleaned up. We also have PFAS in our water and have sued a bunch of companies for millions becuase PFAS is highly toxic but won’t redirect funds to pay for the contamination, as one councilperson suggested, because they need the money to put toxic pfas laden turf on the Schedler property if/when the project is approved. Folks, you just can’t make this stuff up.
The Matrix messaging doesn’t add up – “IF” it is marginal, why are you asking us to test more property, to make more money? “IF” it is marginal, why did you send anything to the NJDEP? “IF” it is marginal you must know because you have results from your test, but you won’t release it to Ridgewood?
“IF” it exceeded the NJDEP standards, than we are in violation and it needs to be remediated, not turn a blind eye. Or will Mayor Paul tell us, “mercury and lead are everywhere” so don’t worry.
NJDEP should determine and approve the results and the remediation, not Matrix.
Yeah glow in the dark lawn.
Right I want to see all results from the DEP, no one else
Wait until someone conducts their own soil testing, with speaking with a contractor they told us that it would cost around five grand to have the soil tested privately that’s DEP certified through the state.
I want to see it in writing that there is no health concern. Until then, stop with the true crime questioning and get down to what is really important. Fixing it under the strictest guidelines mandated. I don’t want to hear that the level is just a little low so no biggie. We have learned by now not to trust Vagianos (former environmental lawyer), Pam Perron (former Lawyer), Evan Weitz (current Compliance officer) and Winograd (worked at Tiffany’s). These guys are bad actors as was evident from the performance they gave the other night while questioning Matrix. And if any other properties need to be checked for contamination, you might want to get a group discount.