the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Twp of Washington NJ, the Mayor of Twp of Washington Peter Calamari updated the township on the hazmat issues facing the townships DPW garage at the town hall . In a post of Facebook Calamari said the following :
“Monday night would have been the first Council meeting I would have been able to attend in over a month and I planned to give a status update on the topic of the DPW. The meeting was canceled in the late afternoon and so I was unable to update the Council and residents at that time.
As many are already aware, an extensive search for a suitable temporary location for the DPW was conducted. We exhausted every possible location both in and out of Town. We took suggestions from the Council and residents and investigated anything that was feasible. The decision was ultimately made to construct a two bay garage at the Town Hall site where the existing DPW building is located. This decision was not easy and was based on the fact that the DPW already operates from this location and the deadline for remediating the soil is fast approaching.
This remediation is a result of contamination by a fuel storage tank leak that occurred onsite in the 1970’s and 1980’s. A portion of this contamination is underneath the existing building, so the building must be taken down as part of the project. It should be noted that the existing building was long obsolete, unsuitable, and well past its service life. Prior administrations were aware of the problem and deadline for remediation but action was not taken until now.
I can assure the residents that no additional Hazmat will be stored onsite. I will add that the town is doing all it can to minimize the impact to the surrounding residents.
Regards,
Mayor Peter Calamari
March 24, 2021″
