(pictures were taken yesterday April 17 and today April 18, 2018)
April 19,2018
Derek Michalski
Upper Saddle River NJ, Three days in a row muddy waters of Pleasant Brook in Upper Saddle River and Westearly Branch Of Saddle River in the town of Saddle River continued filling various ponds between Mahwah, Upper and Saddle River with heavy mud. This topic dominated also for the third day local discussions about the potential impact of this unprecedented continuous silt/dust/mud pollution by Apple Ridge massive construction site.
The presence of heavy mud floating thorough Upper and Saddle River aquatic system in opinion of many is another piece of evidence of continuous (since December 2017) mud pollution from the site that was ordered by NJDEP to undergo remediation of arsenic and lead within the top soil rata. Consequently on January 13, 2018 Stop Work Order was issued on 100 plus acres of the so called by GreenUSR members “Arsenic Field”.
In the past the public was informed that the sediment within the stream channel was tested but nobody provided any info whether the test occurred before or after the rain. In the light of over 4 month long pollution period the author of this post publicly demands to test all three ponds within 5 mile radius of the contaminated site. Logically the tests should be done two days ago but today (April 18) the waters are still full of mud and who knows if arsenic and lead that is being the subject of remediation on the site is not present in the heavy mud imported from the site to our GreenUSR aquatic ecosystem.
If Upper and Saddle River residents want to preserve the beauty of this neighborhood and to STOP continually deteriorating values of our homes this call for action shouldn’t be ignored by our local leaders. It’s too late to stop the destruction of 1000 trees, it’s too late to stop the construction site but on the Eve of 48th Earth Day Celebration it’s not to late to test the muddy waters and to dispel the fear and suspicion in our GreenUSR communities. Please show us your leadership. Happy Earth Day GreenUSR! ?
Link to stop work order:
https://www.usrtoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Scan0073-1.pdf
Yeah yeah yeah… another planning board and engineer approving stuff on the fly without oversight during construction si the developers get away with shit
They are pumping their mud into the Pleasant brook at least for three days after each rain. The town need to stop this!
We will have arsenic all over and will ruin our well water. “Arsenic = Poison”
That town has. Changed .
We notified town officials in Saddle River in January that something was wrong and like always they did nothing to research the problem.
Might I remind everyone that the project just started and we have another 18 months of construction to get through. We need to stop this sooner rather than later. Toll Brothers has a history of breaking the law and paying the fines because that is much cheaper in the long run than actually doing the right thing for the environment. USR should be monitoring this situation on a daily basis, especially during rain, to make sure that Toll Brothers is doing what they were instructed to do by the engineers and the DEP.