By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
For years, the neighbors on 38th Street have been trying to figure out why puddles of slimy, fetid water have been lurking in the gutters in front of their homes. The stagnant water never goes away.
One unsubstantiated rumor going around the neighborhood is that there may be abandoned railroad tracks buried underneath this section of 38th Street between Central and Landis avenues, causing the water to percolate up on the road.
In addition to its nauseating green tint, the water also has an oily sheen and a stinky odor that suggests it has an unpleasant origin somewhere in Sea Isle City.
But it appears the mystery has finally been solved. Quite simply, it is groundwater that collects in the gutter, City Business Administrator George Savastano said.
Now, in response to complaints from the neighbors along 38th Street, City Council awarded a construction contract Tuesday for drainage improvements to get rid of the water.
“The project at 38th Street will include construction of an underground drainage system that will address the chronic problems associated with groundwater there that continually create ponding water along the gutter lines,” Mayor Leonard Desiderio said during the Council meeting.
A beer can and paper are among the litter collected in the puddles of water along 38th Street.
The drainage work for 38th Street is part of a larger construction contract that will also include road construction on 58th Street from Landis to Central, 59th Street from Sounds Avenue to Central and Sounds Avenue along the parking area on the west side of the city’s Dealy Field recreation complex.
“I want to thank the residents of both neighborhoods at 38th Street and around Dealy Field for their patience as we’ve worked to install utilities and engineer these projects thus far,” Desiderio said.
The $656,129 construction contract was awarded by City Council to Think Pavers Hardscaping LLC of Mount Royal, N.J.
For the last three years, homeowner Fred Caspar, of 137 E. 38th Street, has appeared at Council meetings to implore city officials to investigate the source of the foul water and remove it.
The last time Caspar showed up at a Council meeting, in July 2023, he brought with him a jar of murky, brown water that he collected from the gutter along 38th Street. He held up the jar to show the Council members the stinky liquid.
In 2023, homeowner Fred Caspar shows City Council a jar containing fetid water collected from the gutter on 38th Street.
Caspar, who lives in Williamstown, N.J., has had a summer vacation home on 38th Street since 2009. During a 2023 interview with SeaIsleNews.com, he said the slimy water started to appear a few years ago after an old house dating to the early 1900s was demolished on 38th Street and replaced with two single-family homes.
“It’s got like a sewage kind of smell, a nasty smell,” Caspar said of the water in 2023. “There’s a green, algae slime and an oil slick on top of it.”
He characterized it as a mystery as to why the water continues to linger in front of his house and his neighbors’ homes every day, even when it’s hot and sunny. He explained in 2023 that the stagnant water has not only stained the gutters, but also the curbs and homeowners’ driveways.
Caspar did not attend Tuesday’s Council meeting for the award of the construction contract and could not be reached for comment afterward.
Councilman J.B. Feeley credited Caspar for being the one who alerted city officials to the problem and persisted until something was done about it.
“He kind of led the charge for the people,” Feeley said.
The stagnant water has stained the gutters, curbs and some of the homeowners' driveways.
