Water Works Conservance, Inc.

"Effort to save waterworks gets boost, The Record 6/7/02"

Effort to save waterworks gets boost
The Record, Friday, June 07, 2002
By KAREN MAHABIR
Staff Writer

ORADELL - A national preservation group with a record of saving historic sites threw its support Thursday behind a local effort to save the old Hackensack Water Co. plant.
Declaring it a "rare and remarkably intact testament to American ingenuity," the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the water plant to its annual list of "America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places." The non-profit organization, based in Washington, D.C., hopes the designation will bring the site national attention and rally preservationists, educators, and scientists to provide support and money.
Bergen County Executive William "Pat'' Schuber has proposed razing much of the complex to leave behind Roman-style ruins that would serve as the anchor of a park. He said through a spokesman that it could cost up to $20 million to fully preserve the site.
Preservationists from across the country say the site should be maintained as a museum with educational, research, environmental, and cultural centers.
"This is a time capsule of 19th and 20th century technology," Adrian Scott Fine, a senior program officer with the trust, said Thursday at the site. "This is a very good example of an industrial historic landmark. ... We need to preserve this just as much as a good home, or a courthouse."
The plant was erected between 1882 and 1911 and filtered water until 1990, when it was replaced by a modern facility. The method of carbon filtration, which became an international standard, was developed at the site in the 1920s, according to preservationists.
Since 1988, Fine said, the trust has named 135 sites and all but one have been saved.
For local conservationists, who have been fighting for years to preserve and restore the red-brick buildings on the 13-acre Van Buskirk Island, Thursday's designation was hailed as a major victory.
"This is like a gift from God," said Maggie Harrer, president of the Water Works Conservancy, Inc., a local group seeking to preserve the site.
Thom Ammirato, a spokesman for Schuber, said the plan for Roman-style ruins is a compromise between those who want to turn the site into a park and those who want the buildings fully restored.
The buildings, he said, would cost more money to preserve and maintain than to demolish, and the preservation group "has yet to submit a viable business plan on how to keep it going without huge taxpayer support."
But Harrer said several foundations have indicated they would support educational programs that would be offered at the restored site. "There's an enormous amount of funding available for the kind of programming we propose," she said.
The site has been owned by Bergen County since it was turned over by United Water nine years ago.
The fate of the plant now rests with state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell, who is expected to rule by the end of this month on the whether the county can proceed with its plan. In February, the State Historic Sites Council recommended to Campbell that he reject the county's plan, saying the site is a nationally significant landmark.
Al Ivany, a spokesman for the commissioner, said the issue is still under review and that Campbell wants to visit the site before making a decision.
Among other sites on the National Trust's List of endangered historic places are the Cheseapeake Bay Skipjack Fleet in Maryland and the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.
, and Oklahoma City's Gold Dome Bank, an early example of the geodesic dome patented by Buckminster Fuller.
Karen Mahabir's e-mail address is mahabir@northjersey.com
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