Please Forgive any Cross Posting

Dear Friends and Supporters,
Thanks to the wisdom, vision and courage of Commissioner Bradley Campbell of 
the NJ DEP, the NJ Historic Sites Advisory Council, and the new Bergen County 
Executive Dennis McNerney, the long battle to save the Historic Hackensack 
Water Works is almost over.  The buildings will be saved!  

The next step will be to determine a plan for the buildings that will allow 
for education, interpretation and access for the public  to this New Jersey and 
National historic site.

 Thank you to all who have contributed to this 8 1/2 year battle and whose 
support, advice and continuing efforts helped bring the threat to this American 
Treasure to the attention of the County, the state and the nation.

There is much work to do and many more steps to be taken, but we can all 
share in a moment of celebration that the first big step has been taken.  We 
encourage you to thank Dep Commissioner Campbell and County Executive Dennis 
McNerney by e-mail/fax or phone, for this wise and courageous first step.

An editorial by James Ahearne that appeared in today's Record Opinion section 
follows.

My personal thanks to all of you who have been stalwart and unstinting in 
your encouragement to the Water Works Conservancy.  As of Monday, September 15, I 
will be stepping down as President of the WWC and handing over the helm to 
the very able hands of Anthony Vouvalides.  Tony is a well respected educator, 
principal of Roosevelt School in River Edge, and was responsible for creating 
the educational programs for the Beuhler Space Challenger Center.  He has also 
collaborated in creating innovative environmental/educational programs with 
Dr. Angela Cristini of Ramapo College.  He has been the chair of WWC's 
Educational Committee.

I feel that WWC is in good hands, and our work will continue.

Thanks to all of you.
All the best,
Maggie L. Harrer
President of the WWC


SAVING A NOBLE INDUSTRIAL RELIC:
McNerney’s acquiescence was grudging; he would do no more for the waterworks 
than what was minimally required.

The handsome old Hackensack waterworks in Oradell is not going to be knocked 
down, after all.  It will be saved, but what use will be made of it is 
uncertain.  Still, the latest development in this saga is encouraging.

Former Bergen county Executive William "Pat" Schuber had proposed demolishing 
most of it.  That would have been an act of historic mutilation.

The waterworks, for late-comers to the discussion, is an architecturally 
distinguished Romanesque revival assemblage of red-brick, slate-roofed buildings, 
including five pump houses, in which water purification techniques were 
perfected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that benefited not just Bergen 
County but the whole world.

But by 1992 those techniques had been superseded by modern technology.  The 
owner, formerly the Hackensack Water Co., now United Water Technologies, 
offered to give the plant and the Hackensack River Island on which it sat to the 
county.  In addition, the company would turn over 31 adjoining acres of woodland 
and marsh on both sides of the river.  And that wasn’t all.  The company 
offered $1.1 million in cash for repair and stabilization of the old buildings.

You would think it would have been a no-brainer.  But Schuber, a Republican 
whose record as a county executive was otherwise impressive, dilly-dallied.  He 
took a year to make up his mind to accept the gift.  Then he spent almost a 
decade figuring out what to do with it.

A preservation advocacy group, the Water Works Conservancy, was formed and 
began pushing an ambitious – too ambitious – plan to turn one of the buildings 
into a historic science and technology museum, another into an environmental 
center, a third into and education center and a fourth into a Hackensack River 
research center.  The conservancy said it could raise the necessary funds 
through contributions and grants.

Schuber was dubious, justifiably so.   He suspected that the buildings, some 
of them in poor shape, would turn into a money pit.  He didn’t want to saddle 
Bergen County taxpayers with the burden of restoration which he calculated at 
$20 million.

So he asked Oradell to act as financial guarantor of the conservancy plan.  
The Borough Council at first agreed, even though it was the county that owned 
the property, and the county had ample resources to do whatever had to be done. 
 Then there was an election in Oradell and the new council rescinded the 
agreement.

Schuber’s fall-back plan was to demolish most of the waterworks, leaving the 
oldest building, dating to 1882 reduced to its first-floor walls, which would 
enclose a garden.  An immense, antique, Allis-Chalmers steam-powered pump, Old 
No. 7, would be turned into a motionless, open-air icon of the Industrial 
Age.  The waterworks would become a Roman-style ruin.

Preservationists counterattacked effectively.  From out of the blue, the 
National Trust for Historic Preservation declared that the waterworks was one of 
the 11 most endangered historically significant sites in America.  The state 
Historic Sites Council rejected the Schuber plan by a vote of 9-0 last year.  
Members expressed indignation at the very idea.

The new state commissioner of Environmental Protection, Bradley Campbell, 
could have overridden the council.  He didn’t.  Schuber’s term had expired.  He 
had not sought reelection.  The new county executive, a Democrat, was Dennis 
McNerney.  Campbell and his boss, Governor McGreevey, were also Democrats.  The 
stage seemed set for an official, positive reappraisal of the case for 
preservation.  But McNerney proved to be a Schuber disciple when it came to the 
waterworks.  The best thing to do with it was knock it down, he said.

In June, Campbell announced that the Historic Sites Council decision would 
stand.  Bergen could not demolish the waterworks.  Now McNerney has accepted 
what should have been recognized years ago as inevitable.  The buildings are a 
unique treasure, belonging to the people of Bergen County.  Setting bulldozers 
on them would be seen as barbaric.  What is baffling is that two savvy 
politicians, one Republican, one Democrat, could not envision how that scene would 
play on the evening news, and later, over and over again, in campaign commercials.

McNerney’s acquiescence was grudging.  He would do no more for the waterworks 
than what was minimally required, he said.  That is, he would keep the 
buildings standing.  All right, let’s take that as a beginning.

The state Historic Preservation Trust approved some time ago a $500,000 grant 
for Water Works preservation.  In addition, most of the $1.1 million gift 
from United Water Technologies – some $780,000 – is still available.  So the 
county has nearly $2 million in hand for the water works.  I suggest that Bergen 
use some of it to hire a nationally respected restoration architect.  Let’s 
see what is feasible and what isn’t.

McNerney also says that the county Parks Department, not the Water Works 
Conservancy, will be entrusted with all preservation and development work.  If 
that limitation applies only to the physical task of restoration, it is 
reasonable.  The Parks Department, as McNerney says, is a competent outfit and does have
 experience with historic site management.  What it needs here is leadership 
and a plan.

The county executive says he wants to give first priority to creating a park 
on the 10 acres of Van Buskirk Island that are not occupied by buildings.  
Fine.  A compromise on the historic buildings is achievable.  It does not have to 
happen next month.  We don’t need to turn them into four cultural and 
scientific facilities, but some adaptive reuse should be doable.

James Ahearn is a contributing editor and former managing editor of The 
Record.
Sunday, Sept. 7,OPINION.

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