Posted on September 11, 2024
The project to dredge the lake of rock and mineral sediment could take up to three months, officials said.
WAYNE, NJ — Wayne Township Council members have approved a $3.38M project to remove accumulated silt from Packanack Lake, with most of the money coming from township coffers.
Several council members balked at the price, and the fact that $3.1 million of this cost is on residents’ shoulders. Two residents also spoke up during a public hearing to ask why taxpayers are on the hook for the project at a private lake, outside of a 1975 settlement.
Dredging the private lake is something the township is legally obligated to do under that decades-old agreement with the Packanack Lake Country Club, as officials explained. The country club sued the township after officials put in a drainage bypass system from Tom’s Lake into the Packanack Brook, which flows into the lake.
The two parties came to an agreement that if Wayne wanted to keep the drainage system, the town had to dredge silt and settlement from the lake’s two “fingers,” which are closest to the brook, Township Attorney Matthew Giacobbe said.
At the last meeting in August, several council members suggested that Wayne should challenge that ruling, but Giacobbe said the township doesn’t “have the right to take matters into our own hands and rip it up.”
“This was put in place, probably before a lot of you guys were born, but we have to act on it,” Giacobbe said. “And if you’re going to make changes to it, we have to do it through, A: negotiations, and B: looking at the root cause of it, which was this bypass system that was put in at Tom’s Lake back in 1975.”
The township is responsible for measuring silt levels every two years, and must dredge the lake to increase water levels when the sediment rises to a certain depth below the water’s surface. Mayor Chris Vergano said the lake has not been dredged since 2012.
5th Ward Councilwoman Francine Ritter asked the administration to look into possible alternate funding sources for reducing silt contamination or finding another way to offset the cost.
Councilman David Varano also suggested that the town set aside money annually for the dredging, rather than wait until it’s needed to fund the project. Varano also asked if township engineers could examine the bypass system at Tom’s Lake and see if there is a way to slow the flow of sediment into Packanack Lake.
” We all are living by by this agreement, unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be proactive to some degree and just understand the situation that we’re in,” said Varano, who is one of the at-large council members for the township.
Eventually, council members approved the measure 7-0. Council member Jill Sasso did not vote, as she is a resident of Packanack Lake and serves on the both the Board of Governors and Board of Directors.
Giacobbe and Vergano added that the cost of disposing the silt was $1.5 million, not counting the cost of labor for the company that has been contracted to do so. The project would take about three months with five people on the removal crew, they said.
Vergano added that the town did remove the silt in the past with in-house crews, and stockpiled the dirt at the Department of Public Works — but got a fine from the state.
With the funding approved, the township expects the project to begin later this year or in early 2025.
