Words Fly Over Water Department Controversy

Angry over recent revelations out of the New Brunswick Water Department, city resident Marge Kerber went before the New Brunswick City Council and thrust a bottle of what she said was city tap water at the council.

"You have lost my trust," Kerber said. "How am I supposed to trust you going (forward)?"

Kerber demanded the council drink from the bottle to show that they're comfortable with the changes made to the water department, which was recently rocked by revelations that a now-suspended employee falsified water quality reports for three years.

The department supplies water to 50,000 people in New Brunswick, Milltown and Franklin Township.

On Friday, the Department of Environmental Protection announced that between 2010 and spring 2013, suspended license operator Edward O'Rourke reported false information on water turbidity, or the clarity of the water when it begins the process of water treatment.

False and incorrect information was also submitted in regards to tests performed to destroy pathogens and regarding the presence of potentially harmful bacteria.

Township administrator Thomas Loughlin said O'Rourke, an employee of 27 years with the water department, has been suspended without pay. He has also been fined $17,000.

He will have a state and city hearing before it is determined whether he will be permitted to return to work, Loughlin said. 

New Brunswick Water Department director Frank Marascia first reported a problem with water turbidity in March 2013, at which point the DEP advised that public notice nor a boil water advisory were necessary, said city spokesman Russell Marchetta.

In June, there was a turbidity issue again, which resulted in a DEP inspection and a requirement for the city to notify the public of the incident, Marchetta said. 

The Environmental Protection Agency also reviewed the sanitation of the plant at that time, which is a test performed every few years, he said. 

A boil water advisory was again deemed not necessary by the DEP at the time, Marchetta said.

Public notice of the June incident was included in the Consumer Water Quality Report that was mailed out to all city residents on July 1, he said. 

Following the June incident, Marascia said he contacted both Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Saint Peter's University Hospital to find out if there was a larger than usual number of patients with stomach distress.

Both hospitals reported normal numbers, he said. 

The DEP does not have data reporting public illness occurring from the violations. 

Marascia now serves the department as the licensed operator as well as the director. A new team of employees has been brought in, and a new licensed operator will begin at the department on Dec. 9, he said.

No water issues have been reported since June, he said.

Marascia said the DEP reports showed that problem was rooted in the operator, not the plant itself.

"It is regrettable that these things happened in the past," he said, but the department staff got on it as fast as they could. 

"It doesn't mark the utility as a whole," he said.

Council president Rebecca Escobar told Kerber to bring the bottle forward and council members drank from it before a large audience.

Kerber wasn't the only resident to voice concerns about the water department issue.

Resident and New Brunswick Today publisher Charlie Kratovil tore into the council, accusing the city of keeping the findings from the public and underplaying the severity of what transpired, focusing on what their employees did right instead of the three years that went wrong.

"It's an embarrassing violation of public trust," he said.  

Escobar said the council are city residents too, and are just as concerned.

"We are not taking this lightly," she said.

Councilman Glen Fleming had stronger words.

"I don't take lightly to people saying we covered this up," he said. "I'll be damned if I say I'm going to brush something aside and cover it up."

Tormel Pittman said he found contradiction in the city's assurance that they are working to fix the problem and move forward when the person responsible has not been fired.

Fleming said there are "bad seeds everywhere," and while the council may want the person responsible removed from their job, they must follow the process of holding hearings first. 

The city must make public the information regarding the falsified reports between 2010 and 2013, and will do so through a mailer that will go out the day before Thanksgiving, Marchetta said.