to be aired on Oct. 23
BY KATHY BARATTA
Staff Writer
HOWELL — A public meeting with representatives of the Parkway Water Company, Marlboro, will be held at 7 p.m. Oct. 23 at Howell Middle School South, Ramtown-Greenville Road.
Township Manager Bruce Davis arranged the meeting so that residents and members of the Township Council can be apprised of the company’s water remediation plan.
According to Parkway Water assistant manager Sherrin Altiere, notices were being mailed this week to all of the company’s customers to inform them of what the firm will be doing.
Altiere declined to comment on the company’s plans until next week, after the mailed notices had likely been received by customers.
In July, Parkway Water sent its customers in the southern end of Howell a notice informing them that two of the firm’s wells — the ones supplying Howell’s Ramtown section — had been found to be contaminated by elevated levels of gross alpha radionuclides that included Radium 226 and 228.
According to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the radiation is a natural underground contaminant exacerbated by lime and fertilizer use as well as by the movement of soils during excavation.
The DEP has put the risk of cancer at 1 in 10,000. For the risk to be considered imminent, a person would have to drink two liters of water every day for 70 years, officials said.
The danger from radium contamination lies in the fact the body does not flush the element. Instead, radium mimics calcium and once ingested, sits in the bones and can pose a risk to developing bones.
The Brick Township Council voted last month to allow the Brick Township Municipal Utility Authority (BTMUA) to sell water to the Parkway Water Company.
In a resolution passed by the Brick governing body, the BTMUA was allowed to sell Parkway Water 500,000 gallons of water a day for 30 days at a bulk rate with a 5 percent discount. Any sale after that would require a new resolution.
Parkway Water supplies water to 1,800 customers in the Ramtown area of Howell, which borders Brick.
At the time, Altiere said the company had not decided that buying water from the BTMUA was what company officials would do. Parkway Water’s service area in Howell includes the Ramtown Elementary School, the Greenville Elementary School and Howell Middle School South.
Following the July notice, the Board of Education voted to approve the installation of water treatment systems at the three schools. The systems, costing about $16,000 for installation and a $100 monthly maintenance fee, have been installed at the schools.
Mayor Timothy Konopka and members of the council are expected to be at the meeting with representatives of Parkway Water Company.