Why Are We Just Waiting for Something to Happen?

By MIKE KELLY

In the wake of the Minneapolis bridge collapse, consider four ominous messages in recent days right here in northern New Jersey.

Mike Kelly is a Record columnist. Contact him at kellym@northjersey.com. Send comments about this column to The Record at letterstotheeditor@northjersey.com.

THE SIGNS are obvious. From bridges to our tap water, important pieces of society are falling apart or are close to the breaking point. But what are we doing?

Not much.

Consider four ominous messages in recent days right here in northern New Jersey.

The first came from United Water, the firm that filters drinking water for 800,000 residents of Bergen and Hudson counties. In recent weeks, United sent letters to customers warning of rising sodium levels in its water.

The inherent message is disturbing. We may live in one of the wealthiest and most sophisticated corners of America – and the world. But our water supply is threatened. Welcome to the Third World.

The sodium did not occur naturally. It crept into the water supply from the large amount of rock salt dumped on roads during winter snow and ice storms. Rain washed the salt into reservoirs, then into our faucets.

One solution is to stop towns from dumping so much salt on roads during the winter. But the likelihood of that happening is slim. Motorists demand ice-free roads – or they’ll call a lawyer.

Other chemicals besides rock salt can do the de-icing job. But salt is cheap. And in these days of tight local budgets, don’t count on any widespread cutback on salt.

Various health officials say the salt is not dangerous. But they also warn heart patients and anyone with high blood pressure to be careful. So what can we believe?

The day after the news about salty water, we learned that EnCap, the financially shaky firm that wants to turn Meadowlands garbage dumps into a luxury golf resort, has been fined by New Jersey environmental officials for illegally venting methane and other landfill gases into the air.

This is no small thing. These noxious gases not only smell bad, they damage the atmosphere. Recent studies link long-term exposure to landfill gases to some forms of cancer.

EnCap denies any wrongdoing and blames the state for not funding a special gas containment system. But no one denies that these garbage gases leaked out. So hold your nose. But don’t hold your breath in hope of a clear solution.

The same day as the news of the EnCap fine, the state auditor found that 70 percent of the state’s 1,700 dams on streams, rivers and reservoirs had missed safety inspections, and that more than a quarter of the state’s businesses had not followed regulations to report hazardous chemicals.

Again, this news was serious. In a region so prone to flooding, dams can be a life-saver – or a killer if they break apart. At the same time, the monitoring of chemical storage is immensely important in this age of terrorism.

We are failing

But our state is failing – and the reason cited by the auditor is ridiculous: There are not enough inspectors to check on dams and chemicals. What’s more, the auditor added, when violations are found, especially at private firms that store chemicals, staffers are too reluctant to issue citations.

With so many levels of government in New Jersey – and so many people on the public payroll – can’t we find a few more workers to inspect dams and look for dangerous chemicals?

Last, but hardly least, we learned again that far too many bridges in our state are falling apart.

We knew all about the bridges before – up to a third in New Jersey need serious repairs. But what have we done?

In the wake of the fatal collapse of a bridge in Minneapolis that spanned the Mississippi River, Governor Corzine ordered state transportation officials to examine the status of New Jersey’s 6,400 bridges. In 2006 federal transit officials rated more than 2,200 of New Jersey’s bridges as either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

Corzine will likely find that not much has changed. But, with bills piling up in Trenton for almost everything from schools to pensions, what does he plan to do?

Most weekdays, I drive over the 317-foot Court Street bridge that spans the Hackensack River and links Hackensack to Bogota. Built in 1908, the bridge’s deck is officially listed as “poor” by the state Department of Transportation. The DOT also rates the bridge’s substructure as “poor” and its rusty superstructure as “serious.”

I have my own rating: This baby shakes – not good for a bridge that is used by 19,130 vehicles each day.

But I keep driving over it. Why?

I mention this because I think I have fallen into the same rut as most everyone else. Yes, we hear the news about fundamental dangers, but we blissfully ignore them.

Maybe we don’t really believe anything bad will happen. Maybe we’re just too busy. Or maybe we don’t know what to do. The news of what needs to be repaired is so overwhelming that we don’t know where to start.

But we need to start somewhere. The photos from Minneapolis should be enough of a warning.

Starting today, I’m no longer driving over that Hackensack River bridge.

(c) 2007 Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.