By Chris Gosier, Daily Record

PARSIPPANY - The township is drawing up an ordinance to protect its groundwater by regulating companies and homeowners that might place hazardous chemicals near the township's 22 wells.

The change could bar gas stations, certain dry cleaners and other businesses from the immediate area around township wells. Homeowners replacing their underground storage tanks could also be required to install a new one above ground.

Such ordinances have been catching on in recent years in North Jersey communities that, like Parsippany, are heavily dependent on the groundwater that comes out of their wells, one prominent environmentalist said.

"This is so critical. There is nothing more important in the communities that are dependent on groundwater than having a wellhead protection ordinance," said Ella Filippone, executive director of the Passaic River Coalition. "If you have a spill right by a well, your well will be contaminated for years and years and years. It's really very, very difficult, and it's extremely costly" to clean up, she said.

Similar ordinances have been passed in recent years in Chatham, Millburn, Pompton Lakes, Wanaque and Chester Township, she said.

Parsippany gets 99 percent of its water from its wells, which draw from the Buried Valley aquifer that underlies about 30 North Jersey municipalities, said Art Vespignani, the township utilities director.

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The new law would establish zones, or tiers, around each well, with restrictions tightest in the tier surrounding the well and growing less strict in the outer tiers. The tiers would cover about 40 percent of the township.

The law would apply to numerous businesses using potentially hazardous chemicals, including truck maintenance yards, cemeteries, auto service centers, junkyards, dry cleaners and gas stations.

But the effect on a business would depend on how close it is to a well.

Some new businesses such as dry cleaners or gas stations would be barred from the inner tiers, for instance. Pre-existing businesses could stay, but could need a zoning variance in order to expand, said Ed Snieckus, a consultant to the planning board who is helping to draw up the new ordinance. Dry cleaners would be exempt if the cleaning doesn't take place on-site.

"If you had a gas station near one of our wells and it leaked … you've destroyed a major source of water for the township, and for other towns, too," Councilman Michael dePierro said.

"The farther away the contaminant is, the more time we have to react to protect the water," he said.

Affected businesses in the outermost tier would have to file a plan known as a best management practice showing how a spill would be contained, Snieckus said.

Homeowners who need to replace their underground oil tanks may have to install one above ground or in their basements, depending on the proximity to a well, township officials said.

The proposed law is still before the township planning board, which will consider it at the board's first meeting in January. The board will likely work on it for a few months before sending it to the township council for consideration, board Chairman Casey Parikh said.

The tiers are based on how long it would take a pollutant to enter the groundwater supply. The tier boundaries aren't set yet.

They could measure in the range of a few hundred feet, with their shape being determined by the composition of the ground and other factors, Parikh said.