TRENTON — Two top officials of the East Orange Water Commission have been indicted for allegedly conspiring to hide elevated levels of an industrial solvent in drinking water pumped to more than 80,000 residents in the city and neighboring South Orange, state authorities said today.

The commission’s executive director, Harry Mansmann, 58, of Lawrenceville, and its assistant executive director, William Mowell, 51, of Wyckoff, falsified levels of tetrachloroethene to show the water supply was meeting state safe drinking water standards, the Attorney General’s Office said.

The office said the men were attempting to protect the commission’s bottom line by not paying for clean water from elsewhere or for multi-million dollar equipment to remove the chemical.

Despite the allegations, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, Larry Ragonese, said independent testing showed the residents served by the commission were not at risk and the water in the two municipalities was safe to drink.

Exposure to high concentrations of the chemical over a prolonged period of time is a potential cancer risk, according to the federal health department.

"(The levels are) not high enough to shut anything down or to cause a safety issue for folks, but enough to say, ‘Hey wait, you’re over our standard, you need to figure out what’s causing it and you need to take some action,’" Ragonese said.

The city and water commission said in a statement that Mansmann and Mowell were suspended Tuesday without pay and they assured residents "there is no need for alarm." A spokesman for the city said today she was unable to provide salaries for Mansmann and Mowell.

John Vazquez, an attorney for Mansmann, said his client is "100 percent innocent."

"While we vigorously assert that the allegations are without merit, we do want to point out that even under the government’s claims, no one was put at risk," Vazquez said.

Michael Baldassare, an attorney for Mowell, said his client "is a dedicated professional and a well-respected member of his community" and will "defend himself against these allegations."

The commission pumps water from wells in eastern Morris and western Essex counties to two reservoirs. Authorities allege that once in 2010 and twice in 2011, Mansmann and Mowell shut down contaminated wells several days before testing to artificially reduce levels of the chemical in the commission’s reservoirs, and then restarted the wells after the testing was completed.

In April 2011, they allegedly took multiple samples and chose to report the cleanest one.

Authorities said the pair also illegally pumped water from the most contaminated well to the Passaic River for about a month in 2011 to try to clean it out and lied in a notice issued to the public the same year, saying the water met the state’s standards when in fact it did not.

State environmental officials, who have cited the commission on numerous occasions during the past three years for failing to comply with regulations, referred the case to the Attorney General’s Office for investigation. Ragonese said testing by the department last fall detected the chemical at levels in excess of state limits, but within federal limits. The chemical, often used in dry cleaning, is prevalent in groundwater in northern New Jersey but can be diluted or treated.

The village president in South Orange, Alex Torpey, said his and other officials’ concerns about the commission and its oversight of the water supply "are finally being vindicated."

"It is unfortunate that the management of EOWC has refused to deal with the condition of its water supply and now must respond to a criminal indictment, even though we wish, and believe, this could’ve been solved long ago had EOWC properly stepped up and addressed its problems," Torpey said.

The indictment, handed up Tuesday, charged Mansmann and Mowell with conspiracy, official misconduct, a pattern of official misconduct, unlawful release of a toxic pollutant, tampering with public records or information and violating the state drinking water and pollution laws. The most serious of the charges carry a sentence of five to 10 years in state prison.

Read the full indictment here.

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