Bergen County officials for now have put aside a proposal to turn a century-old waterworks in Oradell into a museum.

Instead, County Executive Dennis McNerney says he will focus primarily on developing a riverfront park around the cavernous pumping stations, water filtration plant, and settlement basin, which state historic preservation officials have prohibited the county from tearing down.

"There's a need to have people use that as parkland, and it seems that it can be accomplished easier," said McNerney, who inherited the decade-long fight between preservationists and environmentalists over the property, which United Water donated to the county in 1993.

The move is seen as a nod to environmentalists who protested earlier this year when the McNerney administration proposed hiring a Newark architect to preserve the crumbling Romanesque-style structures and turn them into a museum that would be open by appointment to schoolchildren and other groups.

Although the architect, David Gibson, would have brought in a landscape architect to design a park, environmentalists complained when Gibson suggested that the county preserve a 50-year-old building that is not on the state's protection list, and which the environmentalists said would block access to the Hackensack River.

The environmentalists, including members of the Sierra Club's North Jersey group, also said the county should ask the state for permission to demolish the settlement basin, which takes up more than two acres and significantly cuts into available parkland.

State Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley Campbell ruled last year that most of the waterworks must be preserved. The ruling came in response to a plan by McNerney's predecessor, Republican William "Pat" Schuber, to demolish all but some remnants of the buildings, which would have formed a historic ruin-like backdrop to a park.

Careful not to anger preservationists, McNerney said his staff will continue to study options for the buildings. "I don't think that has any effect on the historic preservationist supporters,"

McNerney said of his decision to focus on the park, which would include walking paths and canoe launches. "I think [the preservation course] is still to be determined. There's a lot of restrictions on what we can do to it, and we're still grappling with it." McNerney left open the possibility that the county could begin developing a park before figuring out what to do with the buildings. At McNerney's request, the county freeholders Wednesday night were expected to hire the Manalapan engineering firm of Schoor DePalma to begin work on a park design. The firm would be paid $26,800.

County Administrator Timothy J. Dacey said he expects Schoor DePalma - a major contributor to McNerney's 2002 campaign and other county Democratic campaigns during the past few years - to spend about six months on the design. Park construction could begin by next spring, he said. McNerney said he has not completely ruled out hiring Gibson. But he said he also will talk with other architects.

Despite the decision to put the preservation plan on the back burner, the head of the most vocal pro-waterworks group remained optimistic.

"We certainly would like it to move faster, but we're glad there is action being taken right now," said Philip Salerno, president of the Water Works Conservancy Inc., a group that wants the buildings to be turned into a museum.

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Email: harrington@northjersey.com

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