By Scott Fallon of the North Jersey Record


More than a year after it began, muddy runoff from a construction site is still seeping into a once-pristine upper Bergen County brook, raising concerns among some residents and local officials that arsenic from the property is contaminating the waterway.

Engineers for Upper Saddle River and state environmental regulators say the arsenic levels in Pleasant Brook meet state surface and drinking water standards. See the letter below.

But samples taken last fall from the brook and the construction site by a Mahwah official show that arsenic levels exceed New Jersey’s stringent drinking water standards. See the lab results below.

Those results have reignited efforts by a group of residents to halt construction of 78 Toll Brothers houses on the former Apple Ridge Country Club until the company can stop arsenic-laden water from washing off the site and entering the brook.

“I don’t allow my kids to go play down here anymore,” said Beata Savreski, a mother of three young boys who lives near the brook in Upper Saddle River. “This has been off limits until this is cleaned up, until we know it’s safe.”

Pollution at the Toll Brothers’ 113-acre site, which is in Mahwah and Upper Saddle River off Meadowbrook Road, dates back decades to when it operated as an apple orchard

Pesticides containing arsenic were used at the orchard until the mid-1960s, when the property was sold to the Carlough family, who built the Apple Ridge Country Club and its 18-hole golf course.

Prolonged ingestion of arsenic, a naturally occurring element, can cause a number of ailments, including liver and kidney damage. Arsenic also increases the risk of cancer over a lifetime, according to the National Pesticide Information Center. The more toxic form of arsenic has not been used in pesticides in the U.S. since 1993, the American Cancer Society says.

The property was sold in 2014. Toll Brothers began work in 2017, cutting down about 1,000 trees that had long stemmed the amount of runoff getting into Pleasant Brook. The company dealt with the arsenic-laden soil by blending the top few feet with clean soil to dilute the contaminants and bring them within state-permitted levels

In January 2018, residents saw the little waterway turn from crystal clear to muddy and opaque. “It was like someone replaced the water with chocolate milk,” said Derek Michalski, whose home sits along the brook.

The muddy water was the result of stormwater running off the site and being pumped from the Toll Brothers property into the brook, which begins in Mahwah and meanders through Ramsey and Upper Saddle River before connecting to the Saddle River.

A stop-work order was issued by Upper Saddle River in January 2018 for “uncontrolled muddy water runoff,” but work eventually resumed.

Toll Brothers said in a statement that testing late last year showed that arsenic levels in the soil on its property and in the water meet New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection standards. And arsenic in water samples taken by Boswell Engineering at the request of Upper Saddle River did not exceed federal and state arsenic levels.