NJ Legislature Need to Protect NJ’s Drinking Water

Today the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee will continue to take testimony from invited guests concerning the administration of the “Water Quality Accountability Act.” The 2017 law imposes certain testing, reporting, management, and infrastructure investment requirements on water purveyors. The law sets a limit of three violations before mitigation must be done. It also states that every water purveyor must implement an asset management plan designed to inspect, maintain, repair, and renew its infrastructure, as well as a cyber security plan. Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club released the following statement:

“The law is important to address the state’s crumbling water infrastructure. Under this law, if there is a series of violations exceeding the safe drinking water standards, then they have to come up with a plan to mitigate for the problems and start to fix them. The law also calls for water companies to assess the systems and then develop plans for replacing mains. what we need to do with it. It is critical for these assessments because it allows us to learn from them, where to fix certain programs, or what new laws or policies need to be implemented. We thank Chairman Singleton for holding these hearings to take a look at our water system throughout the state.

“Growing up in Newark and Hillside while spending summers in a small cabin in Ringwood not far from the Wanaque Reservoir and Pequannock, I got to learn about water at an early age. In Newark and Hillside, there was a stream that if you threw matches in it, it would catch on fire. But in Ringwood, I was able to drink straight from the stream. There is a sense of pride in Ringwood water because of the area and clean water that helped drive Newark’s industries.

“We have a crisis in New Jersey when it comes to drinking water and crumbling infrastructure. It is not just about New Jersey’s water quality, it’s water quantity and infrastructure. During drought years, New Jersey could run out of water because we don’t have enough capacity in our reservoirs to hold enough water to meet our demands in the state and our streams and rivers are too dirty to drink from. For example, the Passaic River is 90% sewage water.

“New Jersey has a history of pollution impacting our drinking water. In the 1990s, New Jersey had to close 6 reservoirs because of water pollution. The water even with treatment was too dirty to drink. The North Jersey Water Supply Commission in 2000 said if New Jersey does not do a better job in cleaning up the state’s major rivers, it will cost over $50 billion in infrastructure and added treatment costs to clean up.

“Even though we’ve had more rain than normal, New Jersey still does not have enough storage. New York City has 4 times the storage per person compared to people in Northern New Jersey. We rely on rivers and streams but they are too polluted. Many of our drinking wells have been closed due to toxic chemicals. In the 1980s and early 90s, 1200 potable drinking water wells were closed due to pollution.  Private well testing sets a standard at 5 in areas like Mendham and Middletown compared to urban areas that set a standard at 15.

We need to not only upgrade our water treatment facilities, our sewer treatment plants, and clean up non-point pollution. In many of our cities, 25%-30% of water leak out of our old pipes. This is costing ratepayers lots of money. If pipes are fixed or replaced, we could have more water, especially during droughts.

“There are too many problems in New Jersey from one county to the next. Whether it is PFOAs, volatile organic chemicals, cyanobacteria in our reservoirs, or lead in Newark or Camden.  For too long, New Jersey has failed to adequately protect its drinking water and is putting the public at risk. Our Water Supply Master Plan is still outdated, and DEP have yet to adopt strict standards for hazardous chemicals in our drinking water. It’s been 2 years after the law was implemented, now the state must do an assessment with the DEP on all of our different water systems. We need to assess and identify any problems.

“The state has not released reports or data from the water filter test on lead this past week. There is also an issue of overusing salt. There is so much salt use for roads in the winter times, the state needs to put our health advisories when using salt, especially for people with high blood pressure. Non-point pollution are major contributing factors from reaching lead out of pipes. Chlorine causes lead to leach and other non-point pollution make our water more acidic and the state has failed to deal with it.

“We need the DEP to hold people accountable to fix our water systems. Newark is an example of the ongoing lead crisis we have in New Jersey. This is a public health emergency putting people at high risk. This is not just happening in Newark, we have incidences of lead happening across the state in areas like Paterson, Camden, Morristown, and in 30 towns in Bergen County.  Children are particularly vulnerable to brain damage and permanent developmental problems from even small amounts of lead. We need a minimum of $2.3 to 8 billion statewide to fix our lead problem. We cannot settle for smaller Poland Spring measures that do not do enough to reduce these dangerously high lead levels. We need to protect our most precious resource, which is our children.

“DEP must move forward on setting the strictest standards for contaminates in our water like PFOS, PFAS, and 1,4 Dioxane. EPA estimates that in New Jersey, there are 3500 contaminated sites that affect groundwater that are in sphere of drinking water wells. About 1 in 5 residents in the state receive tap water containing at least trace amounts of PFOA and PFOS. The EPA detected PFOA levels of at least 20 parts per billion in 14 drinking water systems, including Ridgewood Water, Fair Lawn, Garfield, Wallington and Hawthorne. The legislature need to move forward on S74 (Singleton) that requires DEP to establish maximum contaminant level for 1,2,3-trichloropropane in drinking water.

“DEP’s Water Supply Master Plan is seriously flawed with missing and old data. It is really not a plan and more like an inadequate and inaccurate report. It doesn’t address groundwater contamination, toxic sites as well as climate impacts that increase sea level rise, cause more salt water intrusion, and change weather patterns. The plan over estimates the amount of water available and uses the wrong criteria to hide water deficits. The plan does not adequately address how much water we have in rivers and streams. For example, the Ramapo River is in a 10-year drought every other year, but we are taking out water too far to exceed capacity to sustain water supply.

“We were making progress in updating our rules to protect our water like rules for C1 Streams and Highlands Act, however that progress was dismantled during the Christie Administration.  We need tougher rules on stormwater management and bring back Septic Management Districts. Toxic levels of cyanobacteria in the Manasquan Reservoir should be an alarm bell going off to the Murphy Administration and the legislature that we need to be doing more to protect our clean water.  Harmful algae blooms have impacted several of New Jersey’s lakes and conditions are still bad. In order to mitigate New Jersey’s toxic algae problem, DEP need to reverse rollbacks from the Christie Administration on Wetland rules, Flood Hazard rules, and set new standards for drinking water, and tighten rules on headwater areas and the connectivity on streams. We also need to update the Water Supply Master Plan and upgrade many of our standards.

“We also need to do more to clean up our combined sewer overflow because they are a health hazard. Dilapidated storm water systems exacerbate the problem by increasing the water in combined sewers and we need funding to reduce the amount of water in sewers during major storm events. The biggest source of pollution we face is nonpoint pollution and we need to retrofit our stormwater basins to protect our waterways, while revitalizing our waterfront neighborhoods and communities. . After Hurricane Sandy, we had over one hundred sewage plants knocked out and these facilities must be retrofitted so we can handle future flooding and severe storms. This has caused billions of gallons of untreated sewage into our waterways.

“DEP needs to have more and stricter oversight on our water system. Currently, oversight is extremely laxed where water companies do not adequately send test results and if they don’t, there is no enforcement. A lot of things get overlooked. For example, rat poison was dumped into the Wanaque Reservoir. DEP tested the reservoir to make sure none of it leaked, however a wells in the town in Ringwood that was part of the reservoir was not tested for 6 months. We need more enforcement by the DEP to make sure our water is protected.

“The legislature need to come up with funding for water plants, sewer treatment plants, and to fix our stormwater system.  Fixing water system will cost over $46 billion dollars. We need to come up with other sources of long-term funding for our water supply, such as water fees or impact fees from development. The legislature also need to use their oversight role to make sure the law is being followed, assessments are made, and people are held accountable to clean up our drinking water. DEP need to replace Christie’s rules, they need to adopt the strongest standards that protect our drinking water from harmful chemicals. Our environment is changing, therefore we need to adjust, adapt, and be prepared. It is too important for too many people. Our water is not only essential for us but the vital source of our keeping New Jersey’s industries going.”