Vernon superintendent praised for trying to address water problems in school

Vernon School Superintendent Russ Rogers is to be commended for his recent actions to address the PFAS exceedances discovered in Walnut Ridge School’s water system in July 2021. PFAS is a known carcinogen.

Previously, (in 2016-17) lead exceedances were found in several Vernon schools’ water systems. The Board of Education at that time failed to notify parents as required. It appears again that the board leaders failed to provide timely notices to students’ parents warning of contaminant exceedances.

Open Public Records Act (OPRA) requests were sent to the Vernon Township Board of Education and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Vernon’s response was delayed and lacked several emails provided by the DEP. It was discovered PFAS continues to exceed the maximum contaminant level.

In addition, the DEP established a one-year deadline to remediate the PFAS exceedances, the administration failed to meet the deadline, and notifications were not provided electronically or by hard copies in a timely manner as required.

Analysis was conducted by a state certified lab and notification is the board’s responsibility.

The board is obligated by law/regulations to distribute public notification every three months until it has completed all approved corrective actions for the PFAS exceedances and its failure to remediate within the one-year deadline in violation of N.J.A.C 7:10-5.7(a) and N.J.S.A. 58:12A-15.

The board’s Band-aid approach by distributing water bottles and only posting lab analysis on the board Facilities webpage is unacceptable. It’s uncertain how many parents were able to locate these reports.

Our Vernon community deserves better.

As a relatively new superintendent, Mr. Rogers has taken corrective actions. However, it’s essential that elected board members demand answers and call for an independent investigation to identify the causes of remediation and notification delays.

Those responsible should be held accountable and solutions should be presented to prevent future violations.

Harry Shortway

Vernon

Editor’s note: He is a former Vernon mayor and council president