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Assisting investigators from the New Jersey Attorney General's Office, Pennsylvania law enforcement officials served a search warrant at the home of Thomas William McFarland in the 300 block of Penn Road, Wynnewood, according to Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Kevin Steele.
Steele confirmed that McFarland's house was searched in connection with the dumping of medical debris, which has been discovered in Atlantic and Cape May Counties.
McFarland was not present during the search.
The dentist owns another house near a waterway across the bridge from Avalon. New Jersey authorities refused to say whether that house, on Channel Road in the Avalon Manor section of Middle Township, had also been searched.
McFarland has not been charged, and the New Jersey Attorney General's Office and other law enforcement authorities would not confirm whether he was a suspect in their investigation. Municipal officials at the Shore said they were told that he was getting medical treatment.
Neighbors in the affluent Lower Merion suburb called McFarland an outgoing friend whose patients trusted him.
"Last person in the world that I'd think anything of this nature could happen to," Wallace Bindrin, a neighbor and patient for more than 20 years, said of the investigation.
"I don't think that he's capable of doing anything like this. I'm sure that there's been some kind of mistake," Bindrin said.
Joe Heid, who has lived next to McFarland's two-story stone house for nearly three decades, said yesterday's two-hour visit from the Lower Merion police was the first trouble in memory at the property, where McFarland also has his dental practice.
"I hope that there has been a mistake," Heid said.
McFarland has no record of any disciplinary actions against his medical license in Pennsylvania.
Yesterday morning, three popular beaches in Cape May became the latest locations where syringes were discovered.
The beaches at Queen, Stockton and Grant Streets were closed but they reopened around 2 p.m. after a sweep turned up no additional medical waste.
The discovery of syringes in Cape May followed similar finds on beaches in Atlantic City and Brigantine, both in Atlantic County, on Wednesday. More than 100 unused, individually wrapped hypodermic needles were found strewn under Atlantic City's famed Steel Pier.
Hours earlier, in Brigantine, a beachcomber discovered a syringe, rubber glove, bandages and gauze pads near the shoreline. That beach was closed for several hours.
Investigators will not say whether this week's finds were related to the discoveries of syringes at five other Shore points.
Medical waste first came ashore in Avalon, about 25 miles south of Atlantic City, when 200 syringes were found on a crowded beach on Aug. 23, a Saturday during the height of vacation season. The beaches there were cleaned and reopened the next day.
Debris subsequently washed up or was placed on the shorelines of Ocean City, Sea Isle City, Stone Harbor, and Strathmere in Upper Township.
State officials have offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of people responsible for the initial Avalon incident and have received several calls on an anonymous tip line, according to Peter Aseltine, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office. To report information to the tip line, call 866-847-7425.
State Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D., Cape May), a dentist who represents Shore towns including Avalon, Ocean City, and Upper Township, said that if dentists followed state law in disposing of medical waste, there was "no way" syringes could end up on the beach.
Used needles and other medical waste must be picked up by a special carrier, destroyed, and taken to a lined landfill, Van Drew said.
The legislator said he had drafted a bill to increase the civil penalties for dumping medical waste. Under the bill, fines would be set at a minimum of $100,000 a day and $150,000 per incident, up from the current minimum of $50,000 a day and $100,000 per incident.
It is unclear whether the medical waste was dumped on one or more occasions. Officials have suggested that, in some locations, debris may have been deposited on beaches.
Early on, investigators said some syringes bore serial numbers and other identifying information that might be traceable to an individual or medical practice.
But Josh Kohut, a Rutgers University assistant professor of physical oceanography, said locating the source of ocean debris was challenging.
"The coastal ocean is a very complicated area," Kohut said. "There's a lot of different things that move the water around."
Wind is the most important factor in tidal flow, but also critical are waves, beach slope, and the current that runs parallel to the shoreline, he said.
Though it is likely the material was dumped offshore, Kohut said, it could have been deposited in an inland waterway and worked its way to the Atlantic.
Given the complexity of how water and sand move in the ocean, it is possible that many incidents of beach waste could result from a single dumping, Kohut said.
Inquirer staff writers Anthony R. Wood, Jonathan Tamari and Josh Goldstein contributed to this article.
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