By jennifer dome
Staff Writer
SAYREVILLE — At the request of the Middlesex County Health Department, the owner of Krainski’s Bar and Hall, Thomas Street, closed the establishment Sunday after raw sewage was found leaking from the premises.
Health department inspector John Dowd was called to the scene Saturday, Aug. 10 at about 11:30 a.m. after police responded to a call about the sewage on Aug. 9.
Bob Larman, supervisor of the borough’s water department, told Dowd and other borough officials that the substance was found in a basin near the parking lot of the bar on Friday.
Tony Krainski, the owner of the bar, allowed borough officials to conduct tests on his establishment Friday, which showed that the sewage was coming from the bar into the sewer line and the basin at the end of Thomas Street, police reports said.
Krainski attended a Borough Council meeting Monday and told officials the problem had been repaired. He said he had a certified plumber repair the leak Sunday, and that his bar reopened Monday.
David A. Papi, deputy director of the county health department, said Tuesday that the department had received a complaint about an odor coming from the basin last Friday.
"That’s when it came to our knowledge," he said. The department scheduled testing to take place the following Tuesday, Aug. 13, he said.
However, on Saturday, the county department and the county Hazardous Material Unit were called about the site again and the bar was subsequently closed, Papi said. A follow-up inspection of the premises took place Monday, and after the repairs were evaluated, the business was allowed to reopen on a conditional basis, he said.
William Street resident Tony Miklaszewski told council members Monday that he has been complaining about the odor since February. Initially, he said, he thought the substance in the drainage ditch could be just standing water and decomposing leaves. However, on Friday he said he noticed that the substance was black and that the stench was unbearable.
Miklaszewski questioned the council as to why tests were not done at the site in February to determine what the substance was and where it came from.
He said he was concerned since children play in the area of the drainage ditch.
According to council President Frank Makransky, the borough sent employees of the Public Works Department to the area in February and that he was informed of the possibility that sewage was leaking there.
Officials said at the meeting Monday that they tried to clear the area so the water could flow, even using a back hoe at one time.
After the report of possible sewage in the basin came in on Friday, borough Business Administrator Alex Previdi said he called the county health department, and that the department then set up the tests for Tuesday.
Previdi said he later went with Makransky to view the site. Borough officials tested the area and determined that the substance was coming from the sewer line in Krainski’s Bar. Previdi said another call should have been made to the county health department, but it never was.
The borough notified William Nemeth, the borough’s code enforcement officer, in case a court order was needed to shut the premises down, he said. This step proved to be unnecessary as Krainski voluntarily shut his bar down when informed of the problem.
Councilman Thomas Marcinczyk said Tuesday that he is angry borough officials did not follow through with the problem sooner.
"None of the officials thought that they should do something," Marcinczyk said. "I’m furious at the whole thing."
Mayor Kennedy O’Brien said that he believes it was a coordinated effort, but if there was a delinquency in the process, the borough will look into it. It was not until Saturday morning, when Miklaszewski came to Marcinczyk’s landscaping business to complain that another call was made to the county health department, the councilman said.
Marcinczyk and Councilwoman Phyllis Batko went to the site and then notified the borough police department. The police then called the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the county health department, he said.
Although the testing had been scheduled for Tuesday, Marcinczyk said he was worried the evidence had been washed away when the borough doused the area with water from the fire hydrants Friday night.
"They took directions from somebody and I want to know who that was," Marcinczyk said about the orders to flood the area.
According to Previdi, the public works department poured lime into the drains and flooded the area in order to help reduce the odor.
This procedure was followed again on Saturday after the county health inspector had seen the site, Marcinczyk said.
Papi said the samples taken in the area would not reveal how long the sewage had sat in the drainage ditch. Whether the substance had been there for days, weeks or months would be impossible to determine, he said.
Krainski, whose family has operated the bar for 65 years, told council members Monday that he was upset because people had the impression he had known about the situation since February when Miklaszewski first reported the problem to the borough.
Krainski said he was not aware of the leak in his sewer line until Friday, and noted that he had the repairs finished a day and a half later.
"I closed my bar voluntarily. I wasn’t forced to close," Krainski said. Papi confirmed Krainski’s statement, saying it is common practice for health inspectors to ask owners to close a site before they seek alternative means of having it shut down.
O’Brien told Miklaszewski that the borough would look into its procedures for handling situations such as this.
"The ditch will get cleaned out and hopefully life will go on for everybody," Marcinczyk said.