TOWNSHIP REPLY TO CITIZENS’ PETITION

“TO REPEAL SOUTHAMPTON’S SEPTIC GROUNDWATER ORDINANCE”

The following petition has appeared at various places in Southampton and opposes the High Quality Groundwater Ordinance recently enacted by the Township after several years of research and hearings. The Ordinance protects the groundwater in Southampton and places limitations on developers such that groundwater pollution caused by new development does not exceed the carrying capacity of the land and does not endanger health or environment. The opposing petition reads as follows:

“PETITION

We the undersigned are taxpayers and landowners in Southampton, New Jersey, and we hereby request and petition the Township Mayor and Governing Body to repeal the new septic nitrate dilution ordinance that adopts a complicated model to be used on a lot by lot basis, that uses a 3 parts per million standard and that excludes wetlands and buffers from the available dilution area.(unlike the Pinelands Commission which includes wetlands and buffer in the dilution area).

If the governing body will not reconsider complete repeal, then the ordinances should be simplified to be easily understood and applied, all lot areas should be available for theoretical calculations, and a 10 parts per million standard should be used because this is DEP’s general design standard.

The citizens of Southampton need private ratables and need to have reasonable use of their land, not over regulation by Government.”

RESPONSE

To begin, there are inaccurate and misleading statements in the petition:

1- The Ordinance does not exclude wetland buffers; quite the opposite. Wetland buffers, by definition, are high and dry and are included as recharge areas.

2- The Ordinance does not require that a lot by lot basis be used to determine minimum lot size. This is explained in a guide available from the township to help applicants through the process. It may be used on a major subdivision site basis. The wording of the Ordinance could be better and we apologize for any confusion.

3- There is no “DEP general design standard” for a 10 parts per million for groundwater nitrate dilution as used by the State promulgated engineering calculation (Nitrate dilution Model). The 10 parts per million is a standard for drinking water supplies, not groundwater. The groundwater standards are set in order to prevent nitrate levels from building up to dangerous levels as housing density increases. The Southampton standard is a State recommendation for high quality groundwater and has been similarly used in other townships.

4- Though the model is complicated, its employment is very easy. By analogy, a television is a complicated device, turning it on is easy. The entire computation takes less than a minute and requires the applicant to enter no more than two quantities for residential development. Industrial and commercial applications are more complicated but are considerably less complicated than, say, filling out an IRS 1040.

Further, addressing each point:

• The township agrees with the petition that the ordinance could be simplified and is editing the ordinance to meet that objective. That will be done. Until the ordinance is modified, as an interim measure, the Township has written instructions to assist a developer in quickly completing the engineering calculation, step by step. The instructions are on a disk along with the NJDEP’s “nitrate model” and excerpts from the NJ administrative code to relieve the applicant of the burden of finding the referenced NJ law.

• While it is true that the Pinelands do not exclude wetlands from their computations the Pinelands have compensating requirements, including a 2mg/liter nitrates concentration requirement, 300 foot wetlands buffers, and a seasonal high water table of 5 feet below the bottom of the septic field. On balance, the Southampton Township requirements are significantly less stringent than the Pinelands.

• The petition refers to “private ratables” implying that there will be fewer taxed properties. The Township agrees. A side effect of the Ordinance is sparser development and less intense use of the land. Because of lighter development, the tax increases that accompany such development are also avoided. An unintended but welcome consequence of the Ordinance is a diminished tax burden. Fewer ratable means less taxes, not more taxes. The highly developed towns to the west of Southampton have higher tax rates than Southampton.

• The Township agrees that its citizens need to have reasonable use of their land. That’s why the Ordinance is structured the way it is. Bedminster Township used the State recommended model to establish a lot size for a zone. The result was 10 acre zoning which was supported by the court and upheld on appeal. Southampton Township wanted the citizens who possessed good high and dry land not to have to bear the burden of poor cheap swampy land, which is what happens when a common lot size is used for a zone. So in the same zone some houses can be built, say, on three acres, while others may require, say ,six acres. On the same note, the Petition’s request that citizens have reasonable use of their land must also extend to the developers’ neighbors. Someone once said “ One man’s right to swing his fist ends at the tip of the other man’s nose”. Paraphrasing, “ One man’s right to develop ends where his neighbor suffers”. Every citizen should have a right to clean groundwater unpolluted by his neighbor.

• Finally, the notion that this ordinance is “over regulation by Government” must be rejected. Before this ordinance there was no groundwater protection outside of the Pinelands. Southampton’s citizens deserve better.

Return to Southampton Home Page

Return to Bulletin Board

Return to Municipal Service Page