Eagle Ridge heads to Court
March 15, 2006

On March 1, 2006, the attorney for the township of West Milford filed his brief defending NJDEP  Commissioner Bradley Campbell's decision to deny a controversial water permit for the 280 home Eagle Ridge project . If the Court upholds Campbell's decision, the project will lose its required Highlands Exemption and will likely not be built.

Developer K. Hovnanian first filed in April 2005 hoping to force a decision on the permit, which had been in the works for nearly 5 years.  Hovnanian claimed that DEP had dragged its feet in deciding on the permit, and had already threatened to sue the newly formed Highlands Council in an effort to keep them from weighing in on the permit process. Campbell issues his first decision on the permit in April 2006, bifurcating the water permit by allowing wells for the Awosting and Birch Hill sections of town where there were already residential developments, and asking for more testing from K. Hovnanian before issuing the Eagle Ridge permit. (In January 2004, just prior to a public hearing on the Eagle Ridge well, CLEAN's hydrogeologist Peter Demicco had reviewed Hovnanian's earlier testing reports, and found that the proposed well for Eagle Ridge would draw down at 130 gallons per minute, but recovered at only .4 gallons per minute. Basically, the well could run for 6 hours, then be allowed to recharge for 18 hours, but would not fully recover.) The court decided that Campbell had 45 days to issue a final decision, which could include a request for further testing.

Hovnanian immediately filed to challenge the well permit decision, and filed an adjudicatory request to block further testing requirements. CLEAN also filed an adjudicatory request asking that the new testing provisions be strenghtened to prohibit some testing procedures we believed had been employed by Hovnanian's engineers during earlier testing.

In September 2005, Campbell, following the court order to make a decision on the permit, dealt the project another blow. He decided in favor of residents, who had claimed all along the project would hurt their private wells, and denied the permit. He cited Hovnanian's unwillingness to perform additional testing as one of the reasons to deny the permit.

Hovnanian immediately filed suit again. CLEAN's position was well represented by the Attorney General's office, who was defending Campbell and NJDEP, and had used CLEAN's expert testimony by Peter Demicco to defend the decision. West Milford Township requested and received permission to enter the case on the side of the DEP.

The court should reach a final decision on the case within the next few weeks.




Commissioner Campbell denies Eagle Ridge water allocation permit
September 6, 2005


NJDEP Commissioner Bradley Campbell dealt a blow to the 280 home K. Hovnanian project at the 70-acre Eagle Ridge Tract in West Milford when he denied a controversial water allocation permit. The permit, which would have diverted some 25 million gallons per day of water from an already tapped aquifer was required for the project to proceed, and without it, Hovnanian will lose an exemption for the project under the Highlands Act on October 22nd.

The decision comes after nearly 20 months after a public hearing in West Milford Town Hall in January 2004, where 100 residents appeared to speak in opposition to the permit. Prior to the hearing, West Milford residents and local activists tried to get the Township to hire hydro-geologist Matt Mulhall of M2 Associates, who had performed a water study for the Township in 2003, to testify against the permit. The newly elected pro-development Town Council, who had just been put in office weeks before, refused to pay Mulhall to testify on residents behalf.

Skylands CLEAN was asked to hire experts to testify at the hearing on residents concerns. CLEAN hired hydro-geologist Peter Demicco, and Environmental Engineer and Planner John Thonet to represent residents living near the site. Demicco pored over the NJDEP file on the application, looking for well recovery data that was not included in the report he received. What he found was striking, while the 3 Eagle Ridge wells pumped down at a rate of 130 gallons per minute, they recharged at a rate of about one-half gallon per minute. This meant that in any 24 hour pumping cycle, the well could be pumping 6 hours a day and allowed to recharge 18 hours a day, and would still not recover to previous water levels. This meant that the wells were likely pumping out a fracture and would dry out within a relatively short time.  "This is the worst recover I've ever seen" said Demicco.

Thonet's testimony dealt with the regional impacts of the wells, and while he suggested that the other wells included in the permit for Awosting and Birch Hill (which were to serve existing homeowners) be separated from the rest of the permit and be granted, he suggested that a water study of the entire Belcher's Creek basin be performed prior to issuing the Eagle Ridge permit.

Contrary to press accounts that residents opposed the project due to "NIMBY" concerns such as traffic,  pressure on schools and increased taxes, each resident expressed concern about one thing -- the amount of water left in their aquifer and how the additional homes would deplete their already stressed wells. Only one person,  the property owner Maria Winters, spoke in favor of the project.

After the hearing, residents continued to write and call both Commissioner Campbell and Governor McGreevey (and later Governor Codey) asking them to deny the permit.

January 2005 rolled around, and the permit decision was still not made. West Milford residents had two new council members, Jim Warden and Bob Nolan, who believed that they could still bring attention to Eagle Ridge, and wanted the project stopped. Teaming up with several residents, a new push to stop the permit ensued. On January 29, 2005 a protest rally was held at the Town hall. This time, nearly 200 residents showed up to oppose the project, with scores more turned away for lack of parking and space within the building. Leading the rally was former Mayor Carl Richko, and dignitaries from Senator Robert Martin, to Freeholders Evans, Rosado, and Duffy, to local officials from West Milford and neighboring Ringwood were in attendance, all seeking the permit's denial. Based on that meeting, Senator Martin agreed to convene a meeting between NJDEP Commissioner Campbell, the local and county officials, residents, and groups Skylands CLEAN, Pequannock River Coalition and Passaic River Coalition.

The meeting, which was held on February 8, 2005, seemed to be our last chance to present our data to DEP. Peter Demicco went over the well recovery data again, highlighting his belief that the proposed wells were draining a fracture and would not over time support the housing development. NJGS staff Bob Canace disagreed with Demicco's findings, saying that he believed from Hovnanian's data that adequate water supplies exist. He put out a memo to that affect not long after the meeting.

Our next stop was the Highlands Council.  Their April 7 meeting at Passaic Community College in Wanaque allowed West Milford residents to attend a meeting in force to express their concerns on the project, and show the Highlands Council that Eagle Ridge was not in keeping with the intent of the Highlands Act. Several groups, including CLEAN, and residents spoke, resulting in the Highlands Council immediately resolving to ask Commissioner Campbell to delay making a decision on the permit until the Highlands Council had a chance to study the impacts of the wells further. K. Hovnanian did not like the intervention by the Highlands Council and immediately moved to sue. Campbell agreed to hold off on a decision pending further review.

Hovnanian was not about to wait for more review, and filed against the NJDEP to force a decision. This caused Commissioner Campbell to issue a decision on April 28, 2006 to bifurcate the permit and withhold approval of the Eagle Ridge portion until further testing and study could be completed. This prompted further lawsuits by Hovnanian, and Campbell was forced to render a final decision without the benefit of further testing. His decision on September 6, 2005 denied the permit, setting in motion a potential loss of the project's Highlands Exemption.