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 “The drought is a result of the NJDEP's failure to adequately clean up our rivers and protect them from sprawl. The DEP’s policies have actually made the drought worse. When streams and rivers are at low flow conditions, those streams are highly polluted. We need to clean up our sewer plants, but the DEP has done the opposite. The DEP's recent Flood Hazard rule and Highlands Septic rule proposals will actually increase runoff into our waterways. These changes will threaten our waterways by undermining protections in place to reduce pollution at sewer treatment plants and will actually increase septic systems in environmentally sensitive areas,” said Jeff Tittel, New Jersey Sierra Club Director. “By failing to clean-up our rivers, we’ve hurt our water supply because the streams are too dirty to take the water out of. The Passaic River is running over 90 percent water discharge from over 70 sewer plants. The Raritan River has over 80 percent sewer discharge from 60 sewer plants. With the proposed amendments, even fewer facilities will be complying with the Capacity Assurance Program. This will result in even more pollution.”

The Department of Environmental Protections have done nothing to combat the issue of droughts, pollution, nor have they protected us from mitigating climate change that can exasperate drought. New Jersey’s reservoirs have been operating below average levels, while stream flows and ground water levels are also low, particularly in the northeast quadrant of the state.

“For far too long there has been a drought of action and a deficit of planning. This lack of action has put the environment and public health at risk. Every year when we have a drought, streams end up looking like lawns and turn green because all the algae. The reason is the high level nutrients entering our waterways cause algae to grow and dissolved oxygen levels to drop,” said Jeff Tittel. “When there are low flow conditions and peak demand in parts of New Jersey, especially Bergen County, we can run out of water. This is because we don’t have enough water storage in reservoirs to make up from peak demand and not being able to take from these streams during a drought. We have a system that’s broken like an old water pipe and we believe the DEP must get serious on its efforts to deal with drought.”

Not only have the DEP not cleaned-up important water supply resources throughout the state, they are making amendments to increase development and sewer hook-ups, while limiting the amount of sewerage treatment plants who comply with pollution limits. The changes in the New Jersey Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NJPDES) changes the requirements from using a 3-month flow average to a 12-year average, which means the plants will miss peak flows. By using the 12-month flow, it gets around the CAP and increase flows without having the sewer plants comply. 

“The DEP’s policies have actually made the drought worse. The failure of New Jersey to adequately cleanup and protect our waterways becomes critical in dry and hot periods. At many of our major water supply intakes, the water is either too low or too dirty to be able to take in during drought conditions. By proposing to make amendments to the NJDPES and Water Quality Management Planning Rules, they are playing games with the ‘CAP’ on pollution. These changes will threaten our waterways by undermining protections in place to reduce pollution at sewer treatment plants and will actually increase septic systems in environmentally sensitive areas,” said Tittel.

Under the proposed rules, sewerage treatment plants could even be discharging 2.5 times permitted flow. This would violate the flows at certain times of the year and cause much more pollution, but would be allowed. Under the former rule with the 80 percent trigger, plants would have to have to do things to adjust and the inflow and infiltration (I&I) would be triggered. Now the CAP has been raised to 100 percent, this means you don't need to take corrective action until there is no capacity left. These changes will actually decrease our available water supply.

“While millions of people are under a drought, DEP is rolling back protections on clean water. With yearly averages, the proposed rules will allow sewerage plants to violate your permit many times without any consequences or even be required to address the pollution. Only if the plant reaches the 100 percent permitted flow limit, do they now need to take action to reduce pollution. However, this will mean fewer plants coming in to do reductions under the 100 percent threshold, causing more development and more pollution. It also takes away municipalities’ ability to submit plans and releases the towns’ ability to deal with problems. Without proper planning, by only having sewerage authorities apply; towns can keep doing permits without water conservation. This lack of oversight is not only happening under the CAP rule, but also under the proposed WQMP rules. This is clearly a one-two punch that will threaten our drinking water supply at a time while we are running out of it,” said Tittel.

As of now, the state of New Jersey does not require action on conservation until a drought warning is in effect and before DEP acts it may be too late. We believe we need to implement conservation measures much sooner. A drought watch, not just a drought warning, should require conservation. Also New Jersey does have alternative day watering, gray watering systems programs and there is nothing to stop a resident from turning their sprinklers on while it is raining. Scientists expect that increased rising in global temperature, will cause more severe rain and snowstorms, and increased drought periods and wildfires. These instances will only lessen water availability. While we should be encouraging water conservation, Governor Christie has eliminated the Office of Climate Change in DEP to study these impacts and help develop plans to combat the impacts.

“New Jersey’s water system is out of balance. There are no real conservation measures in place and the DEP has stayed silent on thisdrought. As climate disruption worsens with global warming, extreme weather, sea level rise, and droughts, the DEP’s failure to act has threatened our families and communities. The Christie Administration has rolled back our goals to make New Jersey a leader for reducing greenhouse gases and cut our renewable energy from 30% to 22.5% goals. Instead of protecting us from climate change, Christie has closed the Office of Climate Change, stolen a billion dollars out of the Clean Energy Fund, crashed the solar market and refused to release the financing rules for offshore wind off our coast,” said Tittel.

The state Water Supply Master Plan has not been updated since 1996.  This administration prepared a draft report, but has failed to release it to the public.  There has not been an overall plan for water supply needs for close to two decades.  The plan is supposed to determine water availability and where there are potential water quality and quantity issues.  The DEP may be allowing development in areas where there is not adequate water supply.

“It is shameful that New Jersey has not updated the Water Supply Master Plan in almost 20 years. Without it we don’t even know how much water we have or the best strategies to preserve or protect our water supply. Currently, the DEP is the only agency that can formally issue adrought watch, and has failed to do so. They have the authority to issue warnings or emergencies in New Jersey – the only designations that can trigger statewide actions such as water restrictions and rationing,” said Jeff Tittel. “New Jersey has serious problems when it comes to protecting drinking water, whether it is from pollution or over withdrawal.  Failing to update the plan is part of the Christie administration’s attack on clean water. This lack of action has put the environment and public health at risk.”

There are several steps New Jersey should take to improve its water supply and quality:

·  We must fix the drought warning system to include additional indicators, like ground water levels, stream flows, soil conditions, and crop and forest conditions

·  We are not planning for the impact of climate change and change in weather patterns and how this will impact our water supply

·  We need to overhaul the drought rules to give the DEP stronger authority to conserve water and clean up our streams and rivers

·  Water conservation requirements, such as odd and even lawn watering, must go in to effect much sooner

·  Rain sensors on irrigation equipment and sprinklers should be required all of the time, not just when there is a drought

·  More streams should be designed as Category One protection

·  Overdevelopment must be limited above our critical supply reservoirs and intakes

·  Our Water Supply Master Plan needs updating. It was last completed in 1995 with 1986 data and is woefully out of date and inadequate, yet it still guides decisions

·  We need to stop weakening our stormwater and sewer rules

·  Leaky infrastructure should be fixed. In many of our cities, aging infrastructure leaks out 25 to 30 percent of its water due to old pipes that were put in over a century ago

·  Passed fertilizer legislation but waiting to see how well it will be implemented

·  Soil compaction regulations should be established

·  Polluted waterways should be cleaned through water quality based effluent limits

·  Impervious cover should be limited in areas with depleted groundwater and in our main water supply intakes

·  Our sewer plants need to be upgraded

·  The state needs to recalculate its safe yields based on changes that have occurred due to impervious cover and depleted uses

·  We also need to plan for the impacts to our water supply due to climate change and sea level rise

 “Instead of learning from the drought problems California is experiencing, New Jersey has looked the other way. The DEP has failed to take action and as a result we could be the first state east of the Rockies that runs out of water. Unless we take appropriate measures to manage and protect our water supply, we could run out. This would be devastating to our economy since our three largest industries are water dependent including tourism, food processing, and pharmaceuticals,” said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club.