Ridgewood Working with DEP to Resolve $25K Graydon Penalty

The Department of Environmental Protection is requiring changes to the way Ridgewood discharges water from Graydon in order to avoid paying a civil penalty.

The village faced the possibility of a $25,000 fine after investigators on “several occasions” observed the discharge of solids - likely sediment - from the pool into the Ho-Ho-Kus Brook in May, a DEP spokesperson told Patch.

But municipal officials at a village council meeting last Wednesday questioned the civil penalty, citing a decades-long practice of draining water from the pool into the brook that has gone unchallenged by the state.

According to Chris Rutishauser, the village engineer, when the pump is started at the beginning of the season, the water contains sediment from the bottom of the pool which “usually clears up within a few minutes once a steady state of flow is achieved.”

The DEP observed the early discharges, he told the council last Wednesday, prompting an administrative consent order, akin to a civil settlement, for the pool.

Officials said on Thursday that the state and village would be working to resolve the environmental issue to avoid paying the penalty.

“They underscored that the [administrative consent order] they sent us was a draft,” Mayor Paul Aronsohn said. “We’re going to find a way forward that works for them, works for us, and is good for everybody involved.”

Larry Ragonese, the DEP’s press director, confirmed that the penalty was not formally issued and that, provided an environmentally sound method of discharging the pool is found, the village would not be required to pay any fine.

“We will make it our business to make sure the town complies with environmental rules, but give them some guidance as to how to do it better,” he said.

Aronsohn said that discussions between the DEP and village were to continue this week.

It was unclear where those talks would lead, but Rutishauser has outlined one possible remedy to the DEP’s concerns.

A project, he said, could be completed for an estimated cost of $40,000 to run a pipe from the pool’s discharge pump under the Graydon parking lot to a sewer manhole.

The DEP would have to approve for the water to be routed to the village’s water treatment plant, which the engineer indicated could handle the extra inflow.

Whatever the solution, Ragonese underscored that the department would seek to avoid a penalty that would ultimately burden taxpayers.

“There will be no civil penalty as long as we can come up with a solution,” he said.