August Water Tests Showed Coliform Bacteria

Routine tests in both Fair Lawn and Saddle Brook during August revealed levels of coliform bacteria in drinking water that required the towns to send notices to their residents.

In Fair Lawn, 15 percent of their 78 samples showed the bacteria, all of which were found in the area around Saddle River Road and Fair Lawn Avenue. In Saddle Brook, two of 13 samples found coliform, around a commercial area near Fifth Street and Route 46. Water providers are required to send out notices if more than 5 percent of tests reveal the bacteria.

Coliform bacteria are usually harmless, and are used as an indicator organism to alert officials to the possibility that more dangerous bacteria, like E.coli, could also be in water. In both towns, further tests revealed no more coliform or any other organisms.

Saddle Brook purchases their water from United Water. A representative from the utility denied the township received any water with coliform.

"We take our responsibility to provide safe and healthy drinking water to all of our customers very seriously," United Water rep Steven Goudsmith wrote in an email to Patch. "The water that Saddle Brook received was of exceptional quality, meeting all safe drinking water standards and entirely free of coliform."

Goudsmith also previously denied that any coliform had been found in Fair Lawn. The borough gets their water from wells, the Passaic Valley Water Commission and United Water. According to borough engineer Ken Garrison, Fair Lawn's coliform-positive samples were all found in the area around where United Water's water enters their system.

Garrison and Saddle Brook township clerk Peter LoDico both said that tests had showed lower-than-normal levels of chlorine, which is used to kill microbes in the water.

"They were just very, very low compared to what we generally receive," Garrison previously said.

The Clifton Journal reported in August that at least three Passaic Valley Water Commission towns had 6.6 percent of their samples reveal coliform, which they attributed to increased demand and an unplanned treatment plant shutdown.

LoDico said coliform had occasionally showed up before, usually in the summer. A $2 million water main project is designed to improve the flow of water through the township and may help with the problem, he said. The Saddle Brook Council is expected to vote on the project at their October 10 meeting.