BOROUGH OF RAMSEY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES September ...

We are required by the NJ DEP to test 16 locations scattered throughout the Borough of
Ramsey on a monthly basis to test tap water at those locations to determine the presence
or absence of bacteria. Tests were done according to that routine on Thursday,
September 8 th . It takes 24 hours to get the results of water tests back because the
laboratory must incubate the test samples over a 24 hour period to conform with DEP
protocols. The results came back on Friday afternoon that of the 16 samples, 3 came
back positive for the presence of bacteria. When that happens, DEP protocol once again
requires the laboratory to determine the nature of the bacteria contamination. The
laboratory immediately did a test to determine whether or not more serious strains of
bacteria known as e coli bacteria and also known as fecal coliform bacteria were present
in those samples and they immediately ruled out the presence of those two more serious
forms of bacteria. The bacteria that was detected is known as coliform bacteria, again I
emphasize not fecal coliform and not e coli bacteria. When those two more serious
strains of bacteria are ruled out by the laboratory, the protocol from DEP requires that we
go through a second confirming test and that is exactly what happened. Before the DEP
will issue a violation notice and require notices to be sent to water customers, this second
test must be accomplished. New samples were taken on Friday and sent to the
laboratory. Because of the weekend, we did not the results back until Monday afternoon.
When we got the results back confirming the presence of the coliform bacteria, not the
other two strains, we immediately put the wheels in motion to notify as many people as
possible in as quick a manner as possible. This information output to the public went on.
We fielded hundreds of phone calls over the next two days; I think satisfying every
inquirer about the nature of the problem, giving as much information as we knew. We
still do not know the cause for this contamination although we have some areas that we
are pursuing . I don’t want to speculate and get into what those areas are until we have
more information. The steps we immediately began to take when the confirmation came
through were to increase the level of chlorination in the water system and our water
department I must commend for all of the long hours that they have been putting in, their
extraordinary efforts, their depth of knowledge of our water superintendent, Bill Horton,
and our assistant superintendent, Mark Madsen. They have been really going beyond the
call of duty to try to help solve this problem, working to all hours. That first night after
the notice went out, Bill Horton did not get to sleep until 3:00 a.m. and he was up at 7:00
a.m. and back at the DPW. Same story with all of the other workers in that department.
Once the Mayor and the Borough Administrator became aware of the problem on
Monday afternoon when the second sample came back positive, we were notified , we
had a meeting and we decided what action to take to get the public notified and we of
course began those corrective measures as quickly as possible. New samples were taken,
and sent to the lab again. On Tuesday, they came back positive. Now I must emphasize
that the problem appeared to be localized in the downtown area as I said 13 of the
samples were negative for the presence, 3 were positive. On Tuesday, when we got the
second set of samples back positive, I directed the water superintendent instead of taking
one set of water samples and sending them to one laboratory, I directed that he take two
separate sets of water samples from each of those 16 outlets and take a set of samples and
send them to one laboratory, the same laboratory that had detected the positives in 3
locations and take the second set as a precaution to guard against perhaps a laboratory
error and send them to a second laboratory so that we could have perhaps a confirmation
by two independent research sources. Today, we got the results back from those Tuesday
tests. The laboratory that we had been using previously that detected 3 positives
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