Residents plead for help as homes slide downhill
Seven homes built on fill placed over marshlands
BY JESSICA SMITH Staff Writer
Some Old Bridge homeowners are sinking to lows they never imagined possible.

Their seven homes, all on Boulevard West of the Knollcroft development in Cliffwood Beach, are sliding downhill as a result of being built on garbage in the early 1960s, according to the owners.

Things seemed fine when Joe and Mindy Denney moved into their house in 1998. The previous homeowners failed to mention ongoing problems there, they said. They eventually found out for themselves.

"Two years later, everything started going downhill ... literally," Joe said.

Due to the instability of the fill materials on which the homes on the north side of the street were built, the Denneys and other homeowners said they are seeing their backyards settling into the gully below.

The retaining wall built behind the Denneys' house fell due to the land sliding from rains. A half-inch crack runs from the front to the back of the house, between the first and second floors. There is an 8-inch difference between the front and back of the house height-wise.As a result, floors slant so much on the second floor that the dressers belonging to the couple's four daughters must be wedged upright by pieces of wood to keep them from toppling over.

"One of the dressers is on a 2-by-4," Mindy said. "It's that bad."

The Denneys said they discovered that the former homeowners had re-poured 8 inches of cement on top of the existing cracked foundation at the center of the house. Due to the extra weight there, the house sags in the center.

Upstairs, it is so bad that the floor is separating from the walls at the corners of rooms, Joe said. He added that the sagging house cannot be jacked up, because parts of the house itself are embedded in the added cement.

"All of our pipes are in the concrete - our heating ducts, our water pipes, everything," Mindy said.

As a result, almost no heat makes it up to the second floor of the home, where the children sleep, she said.

According to neighbors, the Denney family has taken the worst hit from the continual sinking that is occurring on their block.

"It brought me, a grown man from the Bronx, to a tear," Edwin Vazquez, another one of the homeowners, said of the Denneys' house.

While the Denney family may be seeing the worst of the problems on Boulevard East, Vazquez and other residents say they are fighting an uphill battle as well.

Clem Falzarno has been dealing with it the longest. The 35-year resident said his retaining wall also fell, and his patios have cracks in them due to the land shifts.

"I've put fill in there, I'd say, at least five times," Falzarno said. "It's been dropping for years."

Falzarno remembers surveyors from a the engineering firm French and Parello, of Wall Township, conducting a study in the area in 1998. He and other residents thought they might finally see a solution to their problems, Falzarno said. Results of the study are outlined in a memo from then-Township Engineer Nelson Iglesias to the former mayor and council, dated Oct. 15, 1998. According to the memo, the firm found that the homes were built on fill placed over marshlands, which included wood, glass, bottles and other types of "miscellaneous fill."

"This fill was placed, or - most likely - dumped over the edge, with no stripping [dumped in layers] for the underlaying organic soils, and with little or no compaction," Iglesias stated in the memo.

Despite the firm's recommendation that the land settlement in the area be measured once every six months, homeowners said it never happened. Also, the retaining wall suggested to thwart the land movement was not built, as it was never determined who would fund such an undertaking.

Township officials were aware of the issue well before the engineering study, according to an Oct. 31, 1993 report from The Star-Ledger. The article stated that although former Mayor Barbara Cannon said the town was obligated to help the residents of BoulevardWest, the township attorney told her Old Bridge was not legally bound to do anything.

The situation then seems to echo what is happening now.While township officials expressed concern about the issue, they said solutions remain unclear.

"If I had to sum it up into one word, it's 'frustrating,'" Mayor Jim Phillips said. "The facts are pretty evident. The question comes down to now, can it be fixed, and how is that going to be paid for?"

Township Business Administrator Michael Jacobs recently visited the homes to assess the situation. He said the township is going to acquire a copy of French and Parello's full report from 1998, in order to gather all of the information gleaned about the site.

Like Phillips, Jacobs said the question of how improvements will be funded looms large. The Federal Emergency ManagementAgency (FEMA) is one source Jacobs is exploring.

"I'm still fact-finding," Jacobs said. "I'm open to all ideas."

According to Vazquez, officials were not always so receptive to the homeowners' requests for help. He said several attempts to reach out to the mayor have gone unanswered until work began on this article.

"Now there's a light shined [on] him," Vazquez said. "Now he's upset."

Phillips said he did not recall ever receiving messages from Vazquez, and offered his cell phone number so he could be reached directly.

"I don't duck calls," Phillips said.

Homeowners said they became frustrated with the lack of response on the part of past officials. Falzarno said at one point homeowners threatened to stop paying property taxes, but were warned that liens would be placed on their homes. David and Laura Harrison, who moved into their home in 1997, looked into hiring an attorney, but decided against it.

"We figured, instead of giving money to a lawyer, we'll put it into the house," David said.

He estimated that they spent somewhere between $30,000 and $40,000 for an outdoor drainage system to prevent water from getting underneath the house, along with other repairs.

"It's not perfect, but it buys us time," David said. "I think people are going to keep pushing until something is done - but the township does seem interested."

State IDs other violations in area

The homeowners' problem is not the only one that exists on the land in that area. Unusually high levels of lead were found near Margaret's Creek, in the swamplands behind the homes on the north side of Boulevard West last April.

Industrial wastes were dumped on the area from the 1960s into the 1970s. ByAugust, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) uncovered the alleged culprits by looking into their own archives. The state named NL Industries (formerly National Lead), Twin Anchors Marine Basin and Liberty Trucking Co. as the parties responsible for the dumping. Getting them to clean it up has become another issue.

Both Liberty Trucking and Twin Anchors dissolved as companies, in 2005 and 1989, respectively. NL Industries is still in business, though its Sayreville factory is no longer operational. In lateMarch, DEP spokesman Larry Hajna said the DEP was granting NL Industries additional time to track down other parties that may be responsible for the lead dumping.

The lead has yet to be removed from the site.

Another issue plaguing the wetlands behind the homes is dirt that was wrongly placed there by Old Bridge Township employees in 2003. While the location where the fill was placed did not initially pose an issue, when a roads department worker later leveled the pile, it encroached upon about a half-acre of the wetlands. Though the DEP issued a directive two years ago requiring the township to remove the fill, an agreement between the two entities states that Old Bridge will not remove the stockpile until the unrelated lead issues there have been resolved.

Owners seek attention for homes

For the homeowners whose houses are literally cracking under pressure, finding a way to stabilize them takes precedence over other issues.

Vazquez, who moved into a home on the block with his wife, Lillian, and their two children three years ago, has been spearheading efforts to draw attention to the issues there. He said he has also reached out to state officials for help.

In a March 20 letter to state Sen. Joseph Kyrillos, Vazquez raised the question of the legality of the township issuing certificates of occupancy on homes that he says officials knew were situated on unsound land.

Vazquez said the 1993 article in The Star-Ledger shows that previous homeowners were aware of problems there, but claimed otherwise during the sale of the homes. Although Vazquez said the cost of suing over the issue proves too daunting, especially when faced with ongoing repairs to the home.

"You would think when you have the house inspected ... they'd pick this stuff up," said Laureen Renna, another homeowner.

Renna's late husband patched cracking areas in their home, but the areas have split again, she said. The corner of an enclosed porch at the back of the home is rotting away to the point where the ground outside can be seen through a hole.

"Every time it rains, it gets worse," Renna said.

According to Phillips, when homes are resold by their owners, the inspections are not as in-depth. Instead, inspectors just check for things like problems with electrical wiring and smoke detectors, he said.

"I'm not really looking to fix blame, I'm just looking to fix the problem," Phillips said. "They're good people and they have a real problem."

Vazquez and others are keeping their fingers crossed.

"We've got homes that are sliding down a hill," Vazquez said. "It's a simple fact. Without a wall, it's going to fall."