Water project is credited with improving town water

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Bloomfield has concluded the first phase of a project to eliminate dead ends in the town water system. The engineering department will be sending out a request this month for contractors to begin the second phase, according to Township Engineer Paul Lasek. Lasek anticipates the second phase will be completed by the end of the year.

At the Monday night council meeting, Lasek requested a resolution for a change-order for the billing of the first phase. In a telephone interview afterward, he said the original contract was for $400,090. The change order will decrease that amount by $24,261.

“The dead ends for Phase One were in the North Center area, Bukowski Place, Cook Road, Plymouth Court and Pilgrim Court,” he said.
All four streets are themselves dead ends. Work was also done on Corsi Road. A water line dead end does not allow the water to flow, causing possible contaminates to build up.

“Our system is 20 to 30 years old,” Lasek said. “In the past, they just wanted to provide water service. Now, the water standards are getting more strict.”
The contaminates, Lasek said, were the result of chlorine by-products.

Chlorine is a water disinfectant, used to control bacteria in drinking water. But its level has to be regulated because chlorine can interact with organic matter in the water and produce unsafe by-products, according to Lasek.

“The by-product is what we have a problem with when the water doesn’t circulate,” he said. “The concentration builds up. Chlorine kills the bad stuff. It’s a balancing act between chlorine and its by-products. You want chlorine at a level where it doesn’t create by-products.”

He said the by-products are known as trihalomethanes. The Bloomfield water system is flushed twice a year to decrease chlorine by-product levels.
“Our levels are historically low,” Lasek said. “What we are doing seems to be working.”

In Bloomfield, chlorine/water levels are checked monthly from 50 samples which are taken from a residential or commercial sink by a technician. Lasek said the township has the authority to check water from all sinks.
“We ask for permission,” he added.

But the favorable benefit to a business owner would be that they would learn first-hand if the water they were using was safe, he said.

A chlorine test will determine the level of coliform, a bacteria found in the human intestine.

“The test doesn’t mean the water is bad,” he said. “Coliform is a bacteria we all have. But there is a potential for e coli or fecal coliform. If it does have a high level, tests at two other nearby sites are done.”

The second phase of the water line project will eliminate dead ends at Evans Road, Carlton Terrace and Watchung Place, and two on Bloomfield Avenue, near the Parkway.

All the work done during the first phase was within Bloomfield, on township property. But Lasek said the work on Carlton Terrace and Watchung Place will cross into Nutley. Bloomfield water line work, for the second phase of improvements, will also cross into the Montclair Country Club.