Moorestown Patch Letter To The Editor: Another Response To Councilwoman Stacey Jordan

To the Editor:

I wish to preface all of what I am about to say with this: I was born and raised in Moorestown (1982-2007). I moved away for a brief time but returned March of 2011 as a new mom and advocate for health and wellness for my new family.

I moved back home to Moorestown to allow my son and soon-to-be born daughter the same childhood I was given. I can now say that as a mother with two small children, I am terrified at the current situation we have found ourselves left with after those in office have acted this way.

We are currently renting and feel trapped because according to the township (and thus our landlord), "the water is safe" despite what actual scientists are saying. This is not the Moorestown that I know and loved from my childhood. This is not something that I, as a mother of 2 small children, can sit back and allow to go on any further! And that is why I must write the following!

Recently, Councilwoman Stacey Jordan wrote a letter to the Moorestown Patch, which I found both disturbing and disappointing. Twice, she declared the Moorestown water is safe. First, “our water is safe and always has been safe” and further on “While our water is safe..”

Indeed, two of the Republican candidates for Moorestown Council have also been on the record recently as declaring the water is safe and always has been.

This is disturbing because they simply do not have the qualifications to declare the water safe. Even Moorestown Township does not declare the water safe; they only maintain that the water meets state and federal standards, which are clearly behind in the best available toxicological science on 1,2,3-TCP.

Stacey Jordan, Mike Locatell and Phil Garwood are not scientists, and clearly have no qualifications to declare the water safe. Actually, the non-partisan scientists who do have the qualifications are quite concerned. In 2009, the New Jersey Drinking Water Quality Institute (DWQI) expressed considerable concern about 1,2,3-TCP, recommending that the New Jersey DEP institute a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) of 0.05 ug/l.

Since 2013, Moorestown has had 10 lab results on our wells exceeding that level. That MCL has still not been acted upon, caught up in the politics of the Christie administration. It is ironic that Ms. Jordan cries about politics in her letter.

Last year the DWQI revisited the MCL, and found that the Health-Based Maximum Contaminant Level, again based on the best available science, to be even lower, at 0.005 ug/l. Gloria Post, a NJDEP scientist said last fall in the NJ Spotlight about 1,2,3-TCP as “the most potent chemical evaluated” by the DWQI ,with the US EPA reaching a similar conclusion, and “There was clear evidence of carcinogeity in rats and mice, and there was more early death as the dose increased.”

According to NJ Spotlight, “Post said the chemical is particularly dangerous for children under the age of two."

Mr. Locatell, Mr. Garwood, Ms. Napolitano and Ms. Jordan - you are not qualified to state that the water is safe. The scientists state otherwise. Moorestown’s level of 1,23-TCP consistently exceeds the levels that highly qualified scientists recommend, regardless of obsolete state and federal standards.

I am deeply concerned about having any of you represent me on Moorestown Council. Call that politics, but it is simply reality.

Emily Magana

Moorestown resident