A $343,000 bill for 'fire protection' drives Hackensack taxpayers and officials crazy

WATER WORKS: A Suez water company crew at work on Passaic Street in Hackensack on May 7.

Suez charges New Jersey towns
millions for water mains, hydrants

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

HACKENSACK, N.J. -- In the annals of budget items that drive local taxpayers crazy, "fire protection charges" from the water company must be at or near the top.

Get this: 

Hackensack is obligated to pay Suez Water New Jersey more than $343,000 this year for "transmission and distribution" through water mains, and testing of fire hydrants.

Even though the city's Fire Department sends out its own personnel to check the 531 hydrants twice a year, Suez won't refund or credit the city for the more than $103,000 billed for the same service this year.

In fact, for the last decade or so, the Hackensack Fire Department has checked every hydrant and its flow twice -- when personnel install and remove markers that are used during the winter in the event snowfall hides them.

In effect, long-suffering city taxpayers are paying twice for fire protection.

'Investigating'

Asked about Suez's fire protection charges at a City Council work session tonight, City Manager Ted Ehrenberg said officials are "investigating."

He said he is hoping to have a discussion with the water company on possibly getting credit for the fire hydrant portion of the bill.

But Ehrenberg noted Fire Chief Thomas J. Freeman was turned down when he asked the water company about potential savings, in view of his department checking and servicing hydrants for roughly 10 years.

BPU authorizes rates

Suez's 2019 bill to Hackensack explains the charges are computed following a method established by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for "public fire protection through water mains and fire hydrants."

They are $195.12 for each of Hackensack's 531 hydrants, for a total of $103,608.72; and $0.004 "per inch-foot of main," for a total of $240,180.98.

The grand total for Hackensack is $343,789.70.

"In New Jersey, maintaining fire hydrants are funded through local property taxes, not by ratepayers through utility bills, as outlined by the Uniform Fire Code (regulated by the state Department of Community Affairs)," a BPU spokeswoman said.

Teaneck pays more

Teaneck presumably pays more to Suez because the township is 6.22 square miles, compared to Hackensack's 4.34 square miles, and has 680 to 700 fire hydrants.

Teaneck Fire Chief Jordan Zaretsky said firefighters do not check hydrants, and haven't done so in his roughly 25 years with the department.

Other Bergen County towns with substantial "public fire protection" bills from Suez are Paramus (10.52 square miles); and Englewood (4.93 square miles). 

Non-Suez systems

Ridgewood covers more than 5.8 square miles, but the village owns its water system so doesn't have to pay Suez for fire protection.

That's also the case in Paterson, Passaic and Clifton, three large cities in Passaic County that own the Passaic Valley Water Commission, a public water supplier to those and other municipalities.

No comment

I have been trying to obtain comment from Suez for more than two weeks, but Debra Vial, the Paramus-based company's communications director, has ignored several voice messages left on her landline.

Vial was an assignment editor at The Record for many years before joining Suez.

The Hackensack Water Co. was founded in 1869 and later named United Water. Suez bought United Water in 2000.

Suez North America boasts 3,430 employees, 16,000 industrial and municipal customers, and revenues of $1.1 billion.

The company, based in France, says it provides water and waste-recycling services to more than 7.5 million people in the United States and Canada.