Home Care In Wharton, NJ

The Brief

NEW JERSEY - The massive sinkhole on Route 80 in Wharton, NJ, is not only creating some major traffic headaches in the area, but it's also impacting business at nearby stores and restaurants.

Sinkhole on Route 80

Local perspective:

Traffic on the eastbound side is forcing vehicles onto other roadways such as routes 15 and 46. That's where you'll find the Red Hut Diner.

"They're coming from everywhere," said owner Vasilios Staikos. "You know they're coming from the woodworks because you know, everybody starting to find a new way.

Massive sinkhole shuts down I-80 in NJ

A massive new sinkhole has opened up on I-80 near Exit 34 in Wharton, New Jersey, creating even more traffic problems for drivers already dealing with months of delays. Fox 5’s Richard Giacovas reports live from the scene, where NJDOT crews are working around the clock to repair the roadway—but it could take much longer than expected.

Vasilios and his family have owned the diner for 10 years, and while you'd think extra traffic might be good for business, it's not.

"We lose what we have, forget to get the new clients," Vasilios said. "As I said, you know the person who's on the highway is not going to stop. You know he's going, where is he going? You know, because if it takes them like half an hour to go where it goes, now it takes them two or three hours, he's not going to stop for coffee or have breakfast."

Meanwhile, Rockaway Townsquare is offering discounts at all their stores, reminding people they're still open for business.

Route 80 sinkhole update

What they're saying:

"You got two issues here," NJ Gov. Phil Murphy said. "One is commuters who are getting crushed. Hopefully the NJ Transit piece can play a small role. The other is small businesses in the area getting crushed."

It's been three weeks since the latest sinkhole was found near exit 34, and everytime, it seems like the Department of Transportation (NJDOT) is getting an upper hand, another sinkhole emerges.

"We were hoping tests would show that the westbound lanes, we could open a couple of those maybe as early as this week," Murphy said. "That's not going to happen unfortunately, that's probably another four or five weeks."

What's next:

The governor says the Small Business Administration can help struggling businesses with low-interest loans. He also said the state’s Economic Development Authority is trying to pitch in.

The state is considering legal action because the highway was built on unstable ground.

The backstory:

The first sinkhole was detected on Feb.10, leading to the closure of the eastbound lanes.

Why Does This Keep Happening?:

According to the NJDOT, the ground beneath I-80 is unstable due to voids left by old mines that were closed and paved over. Over time, the underground spaces give way, leading to recurring sinkholes.

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NEW JERSEY

6-minute read

NorthJersey.com

Once called the Bergen-Passaic-Delaware Expressway, Interstate 80 in New Jersey was a $387 million mash-up of projects built more than 50 years ago.

One isn't working out.

In early February, a sinkhole 11 feet in diameter opened up along the eastbound lanes just west of the highway's Route 15 overpass. After the collapse, New Jersey Department of Transportation officials said they found 90 spots to check for possible instability or voids in the area. Weeks later, an even larger sinkhole opened there, leading to the full closure of the highway.

Story continues below photo gallery.

State officials still don't know, or won't say, what exactly has caused the sinkholes. The extent of the problem is unclear, as is a lasting solution.

When was Route 80 built in NJ?

The stretch from Denville to Roxbury was built generally to parallel Route 46 through North Jersey as part of the Interstate Highway System conceived in the mid-1950s. The idea was to use the federal program and its federal dollars to carry Route 46's traffic through Dover, Wharton and other "bottleneck areas," the Paterson Evening News reported in August 1959.

The section appropriately started where Route 46 narrows from four lanes to two heading west.

S.J. Groves and Sons of Woodbridge built the stretch from Mount Hope Road to Route 15 for $5.5 million, The Herald-News reported when it opened in fall 1959. The 3.7-mile section where the sinkholes have appeared, running from Route 15 to Howard Boulevard, opened a year later, in fall 1960. The state Highway Department awarded that $6.7 million contract to George M. Brewster & Son of Bogota, then Bergen County’s largest road contractor and a key builder of the New Jersey Turnpike, the Paterson Evening News reported in May 1958.

George M. Brewster, raised in Alpine, was a county freeholder who became a four-term county sheriff in the early 20th century. His son William J. Brewster later took over the company, which became Bogota's chief taxpayer before it eventually broke up. How it gained its prominence was questionable. In 1938, for example, the company was one of more than a dozen accused of conspiracy to defraud the government by fixing the price of road materials.

Other accusations hurled at various times against the company included breaching soil removal contracts and receiving favorable road construction contracts from the county. The company also received a 25% tax break from a lax county assessor, had its principal take payoffs from at least one union leader and gained an excessively large contract from the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission in the 1950s that included $355,000 for equipment never used on the job, various newspaper reports said.

Story continues below map of former mines in New Jersey.

What is under Route 80's lanes?

The problem, however, may have far more to do with how and where the highway was built than by whom. Decades before the construction, Wharton was an iron mining town. Its mine district follows a linear trajectory cutting northeast from Mine Hill to Mount Hope.

Dozens of mines were dug there. Some were short-lived and never amounted to much. Others cut more than 1,000 feet into the fault-laden ground in search of iron-bearing magnetite amid belts of dense gneiss. New Jersey's iron mines may be long closed, but development in the northern part of the state continues to run up against the effects of past mining, said the 2024 New Jersey State Hazard Mitigation Plan.

Story continues below photo gallery.

Subsidence remains a concern, as some abandoned mine locations and their associated shafts, openings and entrances are mapped inaccurately, the plan said. Others have been improperly filled and capped, a situation potentially made worse by the considerable seismic activity in the Tewksbury area in 2024. Roads and buildings have been constructed on or near these sites, adding to the risk, the 2024 plan said.

The state Department of Environmental Protection's GPS-based mapping system pinpoints the location of the Mount Pleasant Mine as south of the highway and west of Route 15, directly under the Avalon Wharton housing complex, which lies just to the south of the sinkhole zone.

A 1924 map complete with underground mapping from the local Replogle Steel Co. and old U.S. Geological Survey records placed the mine's primary shaft in that general area, with underworkings to the southwest and northeast that are hundreds of feet below the highway, down to below sea level. Most of the ore was extracted northeast of the shaft before it closed in 1896, and the shaft itself had "caved" by the time Interstate 80 was constructed, according to survey records from 1958, when the highway was being built through Wharton.

DEP officials have marked the modern geographic information system maps "authoritative," but metadata warns that the map last updated in December 2023 is not verified by DEP officials and is it not authorized or endorsed by the state.

Beyond the questionable accuracy of even modern maps, none are thought to include all the shaft openings, test pits, entrances and even entire mines that were constructed in New Jersey's history as a mining hotspot before westward expansion. Mines are scattered throughout North Jersey’s Highlands, but records — especially those predating the mid-19th century — are often unreliable, said Alexander Gates, a Rutgers-Newark geologist.

Gates said he hasn’t studied Interstate 80's sinkholes specifically but believes the region’s mining history is a likely factor. Towns and oversight officials may have required mapping, but early shafts were lit by candles, and compasses were mostly useless due to magnetite in the rock. As a result, mine tunnels may not run in the expected directions, and older shafts could be closer to the surface than previously thought.

“Miners followed the veins,” Gates said.

New Jersey's history of mining

North Jersey’s rock is particularly hard, but if a mine shaft is near the surface, constant vibration from traffic could trigger a collapse, Gates said. Officials at the DEP would not comment on the sinkholes' possible connection to the area's mines and directed questions to the Transportation Department, which did not respond to questions about the suspected cause of the sinkholes, whether it be mine collapse, construction flaws or a combination of those and other factors.

Officials with the state Geological and Water Survey, a division under the DEP umbrella, in the past have said the area's deep underground mine tunnels and voids are generally safe, apart from shaft openings and entrances.

Story continues below photo gallery.

There have nonetheless been collapses before. In the 2000s, underground voids associated with the White Meadow Mine in nearby Rockaway Township caused collapses under a public roadway and a home, requiring the use of a boulder-and-concrete matrix to cap shafts and low-mobility grouting to fill voids, local records show. In that case, microgravity geophysical surveying and test drilling helped look for voids, state records show.

In the past 50 years, Rockaway Township and other towns, such as North Arlington and Mine Hill, have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on remediation, state records show. The problem is not a small one, as nearly 600 abandoned mines — including copper, graphite, iron, lead, mica, manganese, sulfide, uranium and zinc — have been identified in North Jersey. Most are concentrated in Morris, Sussex, Warren, Hunterdon and northern Passaic counties.

The existence of the mine infrastructure in the Wharton area also caused other complications for George M. Brewster & Son Inc. Before Interstate 80, there were well-established transportation arteries to contend with. The company had to build the highway over North Main Street in Wharton, the old Mount Hope Mineral Railroad and Route 15. Retaining walls were built to bolster short-decked spans over the obstacles and hold back the massive amounts of fill used to build up Interstate 80 between North Main Street and Green Pond Brook, a tributary of the Rockaway River, on the other side of Route 15 to achieve the elevations needed to make the crossings.

On Thursday, Timothy Bechtel, a senior geosciences professor at Franklin & Marshall College, told NorthJersey.com that water is a likely factor in North Jersey’s sinkhole problem, pointing to precipitation or leaking underground pipes as common causes. Sinkholes like the ones that opened along Interstate 80 are “usually related” to these conditions, he said.

Past satellite images of the area where the sinkholes have formed show a grass-filled median at the turn of this century. Today, roughly 25 years later, the median between the old railway and the brook is rocks and shrubbery, a clear sign of erosion.

Gates said that if runoff were the cause, however, the ground would likely bow before caving in. He said the way these sinkholes have formed suggests that abandoned mine shafts are to blame. That could be an issue looking west of Wharton on Interstate 80, with more known mining zones near the highway in Roxbury, Mount Olive, Byram and Allamuchy. The nearby Huff mine is also right at the interchange of North Main Street and Route 80 in Wharton on the DEP's geographic information system map.

Staff writers Matt Fagan and Philip DeVencentis contributed to this story.

WHARTON, New Jersey (WABC) -- It could still be weeks before the sinkhole on Route 80 in New Jersey is fixed and drivers and local businesses are struggling.

Officials said repairs will take five weeks on the westbound lanes and eight weeks on the eastbound lanes to be repaired.

The mine shafts from the iron ore mining that helped build the industrial community more than a hundred years ago, are now undermining a major corridor through it and hurting the modern day local economy.

The I-80 sinkholes diverting traffic in and around Wharton, New Jersey have been keeping people out of its mom and pop businesses.

"Traffic is good, but volume is not good. And that's what's happening to them. The volume is just so overwhelming that people aren't stopping," said William Chegwidden, the Mayor of Wharton.

The Town Square Diner finds itself faced with tough choices as the traffic crawls by.

"During COVID, we bit the bullet. We kept our employees on. They're part of our family. They've been with us for a long time. And I can't let them go. I can't cut their hours, because then they're going to suffer also," Peter Sedereas, owner of Town Square Diner said.

On Monday, Wharton's mayor hosted a meeting filled with worried owners of businesses whose customer bases are eroding with the highway to help guide and connect them with federal state and local small business loans and grants.

"During COVID, it was the grant programs that saved numerous businesses that kept the economy going. We're looking at hopefully a direct appropriation of about $3 million to start, and that'll be something that will be able to help them directly. But they don't have to worry about paying back or a loan or just adding more debt to their business," NJ State Senator Anthony Bucco.

Naira Kasparian owns a tea shop in a local mall that's been empty.

"Nobody can get in. Nobody can get out. The exit is closed, pretty much. So, when you're stuck on the highway, you're not thinking about, oh, let me go buy my teas, let me get my coffee. You just want to get home," Naira Kasparian owner or The Tea Lady said.

Long-term relief will come from the repair work Plans were recently announced to build a bridge-like structure under the interstate.

And legislation help that would make it more accessible after an infrastructure disaster.

Assembly member Aura Dunn is behind a bill called "Road To Relief" which would help get grants and tax breaks to businesses, not just those impacted by the sinkholes, but future construction projects.

"We have what's considered the second worst roadway system in the nation, yet the most highly traveled. Route 80. 300,000 people end up going over the G-W Bridge. If this is not the main corridor of commerce for our country, I don't know what is," State Assembly member Aura Dunn said.

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I-80, which has been closed in Wharton since March 19 due to a sinkhole, will not have two westbound lanes reopen this week as officials hoped.

But, state Department of Transportation officials are working toward a May reopening for east and westbound lanes.

A possible reopening late this week was put off after a “significant void” was found under the left lane of I-80 west, DOT officials said on Friday.

During a March 22 tour of the I-80 sinkhole sites with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, Gov. Phil Murphy said two of the westbound lanes could open by the end of this week, “pending testing.”

“Unfortunately, testing revealed another significant void in the left lane of I-80 westbound,” Murphy said in a statement. “Safety is our top priority and we must ensure that the roadway is safe for motorists before we can reopen.”

DOT officials said the final design of the I-80 west repairs is expected to be completed next week, with repairs beginning after that.

If work goes as planned, two lanes on I-80 west will be completed and reopened in approximately five weeks, with the remaining lanes expected to reopen soon after, officials said.

With the permanent long-term repair of I-80 east progressing, DOT plans to have two separate crews working concurrently – one on the eastbound side and one on the westbound side – to expedite repairs.

Plans call for the repair of two lanes on I-80 east to be completed and reopened in approximately seven weeks, with the remaining lanes expected to reopen soon after, DOT officials said.

“The good news is the permanent long-term repair on I-80 eastbound is progressing. If no other problems arise, we expect to reopen at least two lanes in the eastbound direction by mid-May,” said Francis O’Connor, state transportation commissioner, in a statement.

“Unfortunately, the discovery of another significant void requires I-80 westbound to remain closed to ensure public safety,” he said. “If repairs continue as planned, two westbound lanes should reopen in early May.”

Both the west and eastbound lanes of I-80 have been closed for more than a week, resulting in a traffic nightmare. Traffic also is having a disastrous effect on small businesses on the detour routes where few are coming to shop.

The westbound lanes were closed as a cautionary measure after a sinkhole opened in the median next to a lane of I-80 west on March 19, effectively closing the highway in Wharton. The eastbound lanes at Exit 34 have been closed since Feb. 10 when a sinkhole opened in the center lanes.

Several efforts are being undertaken or recommended to provide relief to struggling businesses in Wharton and other towns on the detour route that are being affected by traffic.

State Senate Minority Leader Anthony Bucco, R-Morris, and other 25th Legislative District legislators met with state Economic Development Authority officials to discuss a grant program for businesses impacted by the I-80 shutdown.

“I stressed that this program should mirror COVID-19 relief, which the NJEDA is responsive to, and we expect more details by the middle of next week,” Bucco said in a statement. “The NJEDA will be in Wharton on Monday to further assist the business community.

On the federal side, U.S. Rep Tom Kean, Jr. R-7th Dist., sent a letter to Murphy urging him to submit an official disaster declaration request to the U.S. Small Business Administration in response to the I-80 sinkhole-related road closures.

If submitted and approved, it would allow federal assistance for qualifying small businesses that have suffered economic hardship, he said. Owners of affected businesses and constituents throughout Morris, Sussex, and Warren counties have contacted Kean.

“Small businesses are struggling due to the I-80 closure,” Kean said.“We must act now to secure crucial federal resources. Delaying is not an option – local businesses are at risk of deep revenue losses, reduced operating hours, and possible layoffs. We need action now.”

SBA guidelines require a governor to formally request a disaster declaration before affected small businesses can apply for federal relief programs.

Some of the prep work for federal business aid has been taken, said a Murphy spokesperson.

Murphy’s office and the state Office of Emergency Management proactively reached out to the Small Business Administration (SBA) which confirmed that the I-80 sinkhole event could qualify for an SBA disaster declaration.

That could open “Economic Injury Disaster Loans” to affected businesses, subject to the typical application and vetting process. That requires the governor to submit an application and certification that identifies at least 5 businesses that can document “substantial impacts” from the disaster event.

The governor’s office and NJOEM are now working with county and local partners to address this issue, the spokesperson said.

Murphy declared a state of emergency on March 8 to set the stage for possible federal aid, and Duffy committed to providing federal funds for repairs but did not specify a figure.

“I’ll do all we can to get the resources,” Duffy said last week. “We’re providing technical assistance. At a later point we’ll talk about money. We’re not there yet.”

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NEWS

5-minute read

Lucas Frau

NorthJersey.com

Theodora's Pizzeria sat empty on a recent Saturday afternoon. Sussex Meat Packing has seen its weekday lunch crowd all but disappear. And Rocky's Pasties ? a 100-year-old business selling Cornish meat pies ? is down 30%.

“Customers come in and say it used to take them 10 to 15 minutes to get here," said Tom “Rocky” Rodkewitz, the manager of Rocky’s. "Now it takes them an hour.”

Blame the sinkholes.

Wharton, an old mining community that long ago became a suburban homestead with a thriving North Jersey downtown, has become a victim of its legacy as a collapsed section of Route 80 ? built over the Mount Pleasant mine ? has choked the borough's streets with detours and squeezed local businesses to the breaking point.

And there is little relief in sight.

The eastbound closure of Route 80 began on Feb. 10 as a sinkhole appeared by Exit 34. That void is located just a few feet from another sinkhole that closed the same area of the highway over four days in December.

Since the discovery of the sinkhole last month, the state Transportation Department announced repairs will take longer than expected due to the possibility of additional voids in the area.

And, as if fulfilling that prediction, an additional void opened on March 19, resulting in the shutdown of westbound lanes.

The entirety of Route 80 at Exit 34 is now closed. And DOT officials have "identified 90 locations to be assessed and mitigate potential instability or possible voids."

Gov. Phil Murphy said on March 22 that repairs could take another two months.

The cause of the Morris County sinkholes are abandoned mines that once drove the region's economy, but have been inactive and unattended since the 1960s. Morris County is home to more than 100 such abandoned mines, a 2020 geographical report on the area shows.

Wharton businesses sinking as traffic chokes off customers

The sinkhole saga in Morris County is not only a headache for commuters, but for owners of local businesses ? particularly in Wharton ? who are finding fewer customers entering their shops as drivers avoid the area because of the bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Theodora’s Pizzeria in Wharton saw a 50% to 70% decline in customers on some weekdays since the sinkholes shut down I-80 in early February.

"No one wants to sit because they are sitting forever in traffic, it has impacted us a lot,” said owner Theodora Tzouvaras. "If this takes longer, is it really worth being in business anymore? And we are one of the smaller businesses. It is really difficult to say. They say six to eight weeks but is it really that long? They keep finding new holes."

St. Patrick’s Day weekend was supposed to be one of the best days of the spring for Knotty Pine Pub in Wharton. Not so this year, said its owner, Jimmy Hill. The restaurant, which serves burgers, sandwiches, fries and, of course, alcoholic beverages, was down $1,500 from last St. Patrick’s Day, Hill said.

Warehouse and factory workers would typically take the five minute drive to Townsquare Diner for lunch, said owner Pete Sederas. But that has dried up because the drive is now taking up to 30 minutes each way.

“Their one-hour lunchtime is all on the road,” he said.

Wharton Mayor Bill Chegwidden has likened the situation to when businesses were struggling during the COVID pandemic five years ago. But some say it's even more difficult.

“It’s worse than COVID," said Rodkewitz of Rocky’s Pasties. "At least there we had our takeout option,”

Tzouvaras of Theodora's Pizzeria, a staple in the Wharton community since 1996, said for her business "it feels like COVID again."

But this time, she said, it seems even more intense.

"COVID we did a lot of takeout, and takeout was always good, so that was not affected, but we didn’t have this traffic," she said. "Delivery guys didn’t take an extra 20 minutes to get to where they have to be, customers didn’t have to sit in traffic. It’s a different situation overall.”

Sussex Meat Market, a community shop that has been in business for more than 40 years, has experienced a 30% to 40% drop in businesses, owner Dirk Peereboom said.

"We used to get a big crowd for lunch, but now people don’t have time to get here," he said.

Nancy's Beauty Studio on South Main Street is another Wharton business that has been struggling since the sinkhole swallowed Route 80. Owner Nancy De La Cruz said most of her customers are from neighboring towns such as Dover, Lake Hopatcong, Sparta, Parsippany and Budd Lake. But they have stopped traveling to her shop over the last few weeks.

"This was supposed to be our busy season, in the spring," she said. "No one is showing up because they don’t want to sit in traffic for hours.”

The salon has seen about a 40% decline in customers since the start of the sinkhole repairs, she said.

Still, shop owners work to endure the hardship.

“My grandparents dealth with the Great Depression, we’ll be able to endure this," Rodkewitz said. "But it will be tough."

Help is on the way, potentially

Chris Flores, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, said businesses in Morris or Sussex counties that have taken a hit from local sinkhole traffic could apply for grants or loans under the COVID-era Main Street Recovery Program.

To date, the state has awarded more than $167 million to 5,000 New Jersey businesses under the program, Flores said.

Strictly speaking, the Main Street Recovery Program is not specifically for businesses affected by sinkhole traffic, but it’s a means for the state to inject cash into these businesses in the short term.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the programs:

Meanwhile, state Assemblywoman Aura Dunn, who represents Wharton in the New Jersey Legislature, along with Senator Anthony M. Bucco (R-Morris) introduced two “Road to Relief” bills this week meant to take some of the pressure off businesses affected by the sinkhole.

“The only way to turn this around for [businesses] is to do a 180 and focus on getting them the support they need while the engineers and other experts tend to the sinkholes,” Dunn said in a Monday evening statement.

Gov. Phil Murphy's office declined to comment Tuesday afternoon on the moves being made by the Legislature.

But Yazan Muheisen, co-owner of Pop’s Bagel Shop, said the sales tax exemption would be of little help to the business, since the sales tax is often passed on to the consumer.

“It’s not the assistance that’s going to make or break the business,” he said.

As far as federal relief, Murphy would have to request a federal emergency declaration, which would open the way for business assistance, said Barbara Nitis, a spokesperson for the U.S Small Business Administration.

Typically, a governor has to request an emergency declaration from the president of the United States, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency website.

Then the SBA will provide low-interest loans to businesses impacted by the disaster; in this case the sinkhole.

On Saturday, Murphy said the relief that will be distributed to businesses will be determined later.

Murphy issued an emergency declaration on March 8 for Morris County to begin that process, but the potential relief is still in discussions between the SBA and governor’s office.

This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.

Lucas Frau is a breaking news reporter. Daniel Munoz covers business, consumer affairs, labor and the economy.

Email: [email protected] and [email protected]