Environmental Sampling:

[MARK WINSLOW <WINSLOW.MARK@epamail.epa.gov>]

Environmental Sampling:

Tuesday, February 10, 1998

By ROBIN URIS
Staff Writer

Apparently, cheese-curl orange has become a little too popular.

On Monday afternoon, three scientists from the federal Environmental Protection Agency stopped their boat behind the Bergen County Jail in       Hackensack to take water samples from the Hackensack River.

To the dismay of couturiers worldwide, the scientists were wearing Day-Glo  orange windbreakers and matching pants -- the same "notice me" hue worn by inmates from fashion wastelands such as Sing Sing, Attica -- and the Bergen County Jail.

For about an hour, the scientists worked quietly. Then someone walked by  and, in the words of one police officer, "freaked out."

Moments later, law enforcement officers countywide lurched into full-alert mode. A bulletin was broadcast at 4:27 p.m.: Three inmates had escaped from the jail and were headed south toward Newark Bay in a wooden dinghy.

They were wearing orange prison jumpsuits.

"It's Papillon all over again," Bergen County police Lt. Paul Hamell said at the height of the fracas, referring to the movie in which Dustin Hoffman plays a sensitive, bespectacled prisoner who escapes from prison.

County police dispatched all available units and several scent-tracking dogs to spots along the riverbank.

Patrol cars with sirens yowling sped to the Route 46 bridge, the designated  lookout post. Officers blanketed both sides of the Route 46 circle in Little Ferry and at least two cars were dispatched to Carlstadt.

Meanwhile, Bergen County Jail guards did a head count and realized nobody was missing. The mystery was solved at 4:45 p.m., just as jail officials were beginning to wonder what sort of inmate wannabes had been hanging around their facility.

A helicopter spotted the scientists in Secaucus, quietly motoring down the river -- but looking an awful lot like escapees. Bergen County sheriff's officers rushed to the scene just in time to see the befuddled EPA inspectors docking to investigate the fuss.

"They didn't understand what they did wrong," Undersheriff Jay Alpert said.
"They were very confused, to say the least."

After showing their identification cards, the scientists, who were not identified, were sent on their way -- still wearing their orange jackets and pants. The EPA takes water samples from the river twice a month, Alpert said.

For the samples, Alpert said he is grateful. But he plans to call the federal agncy today and request that they rethink their ensembles.

"I suggest they get a new uniform," Alpert said. "It's not such a good idea to dress like an inmate if you're hanging around a jail."

                               Copyright © 1998 Bergen Record Corp.   

Mark P. Winslow
US EPA Region II
winslow.mark@epamail.epa.gov