Let me pause for a moment to give you some background information that will help you understand my predicament. I was 28 years old with a one-year-old daughter and had just borrowed $25,000 collateralized by my 15-acre blueberry farm, which was the only real property I owned. I used those loan proceeds to purchase a 45 percent stake in an almost brand new corporation, M&R Soil Investigations Inc. Though formed as a C corporation, it was basically a partnership except for a small percentage held by my partner’s secretary. My partner was a local water well driller who wanted to jump onto the environmental drilling train that had pulled out of the station and was starting to gain momentum.
I had been a social studies teacher and one national debate topic in the 1980s was groundwater quality. Having been raised on my grandfather’s farm on sandy South Jersey topsoil and coming off of the droughts of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, I could appreciate the value of groundwater. Many days of my youth were spent moving aluminum irrigation pipes through fields of tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries and other crops that were typical of a small truck farm. Many times, the ponds would run dry and crops were near ruin by the time groundwater would recharge them or a chance shower would pop up to bring a bit of respite to the drought conditions. We would drive point wells or bucket down casing using primitive equipment in order to get a bit of groundwater that could be pumped with a small centrifugal pump to help recharge the watering hole.