Development residents worried about depth of wells

By Cara Latham, Staff Writer
   UPPER FREEHOLD — While residents of Winchester Estates are meeting with the builder of their development to talk over concerns about the depth of their wells, they also brought the matter to township officials last week, who said they would look into the matter.
   During a Sept. 6 meeting, Ridgeview Way resident Bryan Scheff told the Township Committee that about 15 Winchester homeowners have joined together to deal with issues in the development. Some of those residents, he said, are concerned that Pennsylvania-based developer Orleans Homebuilders Inc. drilled their wells to 100 feet, instead of 300 feet, and that, as a result, they would be left later on to deal with costs to maintain their water-treatment equipment.
   Because of the shorter depth of the wells, some residents were concerned about premature aging of their water-treatment equipment, including their well pumps, because it seemed there was a higher iron content in the wells when only drilled to only 100 feet, he said.
   Mr. Scheff said there are a few homes where the water has between 25 and 30 parts per million of iron in its raw form before treatment, and residents believe a deeper well would have a lower iron content, and thus have less impact on the treatment system.
   Jeff Palatini, the principal registered environmental health specialist with the Freehold Area Board of Health, said Tuesday that there is no state law that regulates how deep a well must be drilled and that it also doesn’t regulate the amount of raw iron that can be found in the water because it is a naturally occurring mineral.
   He did say, though, that there is no real assurance that by drilling deeper that there will be lower levels of iron in the wells.
   Mr. Scheff said residents believe, however, that “where it starts to impact the community is that we are experiencing the need for the irrigation system to go through our water treatment, and what’s happening is we’re putting a lot more water through the water treatment than it was ever designed for.”
   ”As a result, the water treatment system in the house has to backwash more frequently. The backwash water goes out to a dry well, which is undersized, and that is resulting in a tremendous amount of water — standing water and other issues occurring in some residences,” he added.
   Orleans Homebuilders Inc., he said, suggested routing the backwash water into the residents’ septic tanks, instead of the dry well.
   But, “a community of 41 homes with failed septic tanks somewhere down the road could potentially impact more than just Winchester Estates.”
   While the iron is a naturally occurring element, Mr. Scheff said, most of the homes in Winchester Estates have a well that was drilled to a depth of 100 feet, which reaches the Englishtown Aquifer, which is known to have a high iron content.
   A well drilled at 300 feet would provide water with a lower iron content, he said, adding that wells for several new homes in the development have already been drilled to the depth of 300 feet and, as a result, have significantly lower, single-digit iron contents.
   ”Clearly our desire would be to have the builder drill 300-foot wells for all of the residents in Winchester Estates,” he said. “That would be the right thing to do.”
   Mr. Scheff explained this week, however, that the developer had actually met with the residents on Friday, after the Township Committee meeting, and started negotiations with the residents.
   ”There’s nothing wrong in our development,” he added. “It’s just a matter of what they installed versus a matter of what we think we should have.”
   Orleans Homebuilders Inc. could not be reached for comment by press time.
Further, Mr. Scheff explained, he brought the matter before the Township Committee to inform the members about the issue.
   ”We wanted the committee to look into that,” he said, adding that since the committee only meets every two weeks, residents wanted to get the ball rolling. He said he hopes, in the meantime, the situation can be resolved between the residents and the developer.
   Township officials said during the meeting they would look into the issue.
   Township Committeeman Stephen Alexander said officials should stay on top of the builder and look into whether the company had to post bonds before beginning the project to cover maintenance it failed to complete because he felt “the water quality (issue) is more of a health and welfare of our residents.”
   Mayor Stephen Fleischacker said the committee and its professionals should first gather information from the residents and get copies of the Planning Board resolutions to see what the board required of the builder before giving preliminary and final site approvals to the project and to see why the builder dug the wells at 100 feet as opposed to 300 feet.
   Township Attorney Granville Magee said the Board of Health should also be involved, and that he would enlist the help of the township engineer to look into the matter, and to see to what capacity township officials could get involved. Mr. Scheff did say at the meeting that residents already contacted the Freehold Area Board of Health to look into the matter.