Judge: Wantage responsible for Lake Neepaulin dam repair

Township tax assessor will determine which Wantage residents will see higher taxes, By Gretchen van Nuys Wantage — Wantage residents will be taxed to pay for repairs to the Lake Neepaulin dam, even though the township committee rescinded the special tax assessment, Superior Court Judge B. Theodore Bozonelis of Morristown ruled on May 14. “The judge ruled that you can’t rescind an ordinance that’s already in place. The Friends of Lake Neepaulin should be delighted about this, there’s no question,” Wantage Mayor Clara Nuss said. The 83-year-old dam is privately owned by Friends of Lake Neepaulin, a 125-member non-profit with exclusive access to the lake. The Department of Environmental Protection has ordered repairs to the dam, which engineers estimate could run as high as $1 million. In October 2008, Wantage Township authorized a special tax assessment to pay for the dam repairs, and began exploring various tax options, including the possibility of a town-wide tax. That sparked protests from Wantage residents, 150 of whom expressed their displeasure at a public meeting in June 2009. In response, the Township Committee rescinded the ordinance, deciding instead to take no position on repairs to the dam. “We tried to do what the public asked us to do,” Nuss said. FOLN filed suit to reverse the Township Committee’s decision last August. “If [the judge] had not ruled in our favor, the lake would have had to be drained,” said Tom Jable, chairman of FOLN. The next step will be for FOLN to receive the loan agreement from the DEP. That money will come from $17.45 million Governor Christie recently earmarked for 18 dam restoration and repair projects across the state. The money will take the form of low-interest loans to owners of private dams, if they co-apply with their local governments, or to local municipalities that own dams. It will be left to the township tax assessor to determine which Wantage residents will be assessed with higher taxes to re-pay the loan. Nuss said she wasn’t surprised by the ruling, but was disappointed, because she had hoped that a letter provided by Sen. Steven Oroho (R-24), supporting the township’s side of the argument, would have helped sway the judge. Nuss learned on Friday that the letter was not admissible in court. It is unclear when work on the dam will commence, because the final design is yet to be determined. “We’re just waiting for the paperwork to come from Trenton, to get the engineering started and go from there,” Jable said. Both Nuss and Jable said there was the possibility of an appeal to Bozonelis’ decision, but Jable said he couldn’t comment on any specifics.