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Contaminants threaten wells, DEP concludes
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Published in the Asbury Park Press
By TODD B. BATES, JEAN MIKLE and NAOMI MUELLER
Staff Writers
Most of the 2,237 public wells and all 64 surface water sources serving homes in New Jersey including dozens in Ocean and Monmouth counties are highly vulnerable to at least one kind of contaminant, according to state reports.
And public residential wells in Ocean County generally are at higher risk than Monmouth County wells, according to state Department of Environmental Protection data.
That's because a higher percentage of Ocean County wells are not protected by impermeable layers, such as clay, the DEP says.
"You have a great potential for contamination" in the Cohansey aquifer, which is largely a sand formation, in Ocean County, said Joseph J. Przywara, Ocean County public health coordinator.
"The issue is not whether the water coming out of the tap is safe," because public residential water systems are tested for contaminants, DEP Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell said.
The risk over the long run is that water supplies "may be limited or more expensive because of the threat of contamination or requirement of adding treatment," said Campbell, adding that more safeguards will be necessary.
Five years after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved New Jersey's plan to develop a Source Water Assessment Program on the vulnerability of drinking water sources to contamination, the DEP has begun posting reports on public residential water systems on its Web site.
Local reports posted so far include those for the New Jersey American Water Co.'s Monmouth and Lakewood systems, United Water Toms River, Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority and New Jersey American's Mount Holly system, which serves Plumsted. Dozens of other reports are to be posted by early next month, the DEP says.
The reports, aimed at spurring efforts to protect drinking water sources, come as New Jersey tries to cope with thousands of contaminated sites, ranging from massive Superfund hazardous waste dumps to leaking underground storage tank areas, as well as polluted stormwater runoff.
In Jackson, members of Save, Preserve and Respect Our Environment, or SPARE, are fighting the development of the proposed Jackson Commons.
Denise Garner, one of the group's founders and vice chairwoman of the township's environmental commission, said she believes the development which gained preliminary approval last week would have a negative impact on Jackson's residents and on those who drink water from the watershed.
The Metedeconk River is fed by a 70-square mile watershed that includes seven municipalities in northern Ocean and southern Monmouth counties, according to the Brick Township MUA Web site.
The watershed includes Brick, Lakewood, Jackson, Millstone, Freehold Township, Howell and Wall, and the Metedeconk is the source of water for the new Brick Reservoir.
"They are trying to develop this town center in what is the cleanest part of the (Metedeconk) river, and if they are successful, those people down in Brick will never see clean water," Garner said.
The township Board of Adjustment last week gave preliminary approval for the estimated $450 million to $600 million Jackson Commons hotel-office-commercial complex. The development would be on 325 acres of woods and fields at Interstate 195 and Route 527.
Jackson Mayor Sean G. Giblin said Thursday that township officials will hold commercial developers in Jackson "responsible for developing projects that make sense, protect the environment and take into ac-count any other impacts they would have on our residents."
Linda L. Gillick, who chairs the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster in Ocean County, said the high susceptibility ratings for several of United Water Toms River's wells is "another prime example of why it's important that we stay on top of what's going on with our water."
Gillick, Dover Township, is also executive director of Ocean of Love, a support group for parents of children with cancer.
"When you see that we mostly fall into the high and the medium (susceptibility) for a number of contaminants, most of it man-made, that is pretty discouraging," Gillick said.
United has 24 wells, and 10 of them were rated highly susceptible to volatile organic com-pounds, while 14 were rated highly susceptible to contamination by inorganics and radio-nuclides, according to the DEP source water report for the company's system.
Many of United's wells tap into the shallow Cohansey aquifer, which is particularly susceptible to groundwater contamination.
Once ground water becomes polluted, "it is difficult and costly to clean up," according to a DEP report on the agency's Web site. Contaminated groundwater supplies are frequently abandoned and re-placed by costlier surface water supplies.
"Given New Jersey's reliance on ground water as an integral source of drinking water, the potential annual cost resulting from groundwater contamination is hundreds of millions of dollars," the report says.
"The costs of remediation or of developing replacement water sources is burdensome, and in some cases, may be prohibitive for local governments and utilities," the report says. "Preventing groundwater pollution is clearly the most cost-effective approach to maintaining groundwater sources."
The DEP's Source Water Assessment Plan stresses prevention as "the first line of defense to protect New Jersey's ground-water resources," the report says.
Sharon E. Schulman, president of Aqua New Jersey, a water company based in Hamilton, Mercer County, recalls the aggravation and expense that resulted when the company discovered several years ago that one of its wells was contaminated. Methyl tertiary butyl ether, a gasoline additive, was found in a Camden County well, according to Schulman.
MTBE has also been found in some private wells in Berkeley.
The cost of shutting down the well, buying water to offset the loss and installing a new well probably reached $2.5 million to $3 million, Schulman said.
The company took the matter to federal court and reached a settlement, so ratepayers were not affected, she said.
"The amount of aggravation that went into 3 1/2 years of this is unbelievable," Schulman said.
Assessing source water
Amendments to the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in 1996 required New Jersey and other states to develop Source Water Assessment Programs, the DEP says.
And since 1999, state and federal officials have gauged the vulnerability of thousands of public wells and dozens of surface water intakes in New Jersey, according to the DEP's Web site.
Reports on "noncommunity water systems," which serve schools, businesses, restaurants and other nonresidential locations, are to be posted on the DEP's Web site next spring, the Web site says. Such systems get virtually all of their water from a total of nearly 4,000 wells.
According to source water re-ports to date and officials:
· As of summer 2003, New Jersey had 606 community water systems that serve residences with a total of 2,237 wells and 64 surface water intakes. The systems serve about 7.5 million people.
· 77 percent of the drinking water sources statewide were rated highly susceptible to contamination from at least one kind of contaminant.
· 46.8 percent of Ocean County's 248 public wells are highly vulnerable to radionuclides, which are radioactive sub-stances such as radium, which can cause bone and other cancers, while 28.6 percent of the wells are highly susceptible to volatile organic chemicals such as benzene, a known human carcinogen.
· 12.1 percent of Monmouth County's 132 public wells are highly susceptible to radionuclides, while 5.3 percent are highly vulnerable to volatile organic chemicals.
Wells tap into ground water in aquifers. Potential sources of contamination for wells and surface waters, such as rivers and streams, include runoff from roadways, pesticide and herbicide use, storage facilities, landfills, known contaminated sites, leaking underground storage tanks and waste water and other discharges, according to the DEP Web site.
To date, drinking water quality in New Jersey has largely met government standards.
For example, more than 90 per-cent of public wells that serve homes have not exceeded limits for volatile organic chemicals in recent years, the DEP says.
"The quality of New Jersey's public drinking water continues to be excellent," according to a DEP report on drinking water violations in 2002, the latest available.
However, New Jersey had more than 12,600 known contaminated sites, including 1,040 in Monmouth County and 478 in Ocean County, according to a 2001 DEP list, the latest avail-able.
Protection plans
Once vulnerability assessments on drinking water sources are completed, the next step is to develop plans to preserve and protect them, the DEP Web site says. Federal law does not re-quire such plans, but the DEP strongly encourages them.
Efforts to protect a water source may include zoning ordinances to control activities and development, preserving land, programs for collecting hazardous waste and public education, the DEP Web site says.
The DEP's Source Water Assessment Program does not cover the approximately 400,000 private wells that serve about 1.5 million people, but private sources of drinking water will benefit indirectly, according to government Web sites.
DEP officials are in ongoing discussions with federal officials about water systems or municipalities developing protection plans, the DEP said in an e-mail to the Press.
The DEP supports municipal efforts to adopt plans that include ordinances to protect well heads, the DEP said.
A well-head protection area is the surface and subsurface area "through which pollutants are reasonably likely to move to-ward and reach" a well or well field, the DEP Web site says.
Stafford adopted a well-head protection ordinance years ago, the DEP said.
Other groups, such as water-shed and local environmental groups, could be instrumental in developing or supporting protection plans and voluntary efforts, the DEP e-mail said.
DEP Commissioner Campbell said he thinks the source water data clearly show that "additional safeguards and protections are needed to protect our drinking water sources."
Maureen Duffy, a spokeswoman for New Jersey American Water, which serves much of Monmouth and Ocean counties, said the company has the "water treatment technology in place to address these potential contaminants."
The company participates in local and state watershed management programs in efforts to "try and stay ahead of contaminants," Duffy said.
Przywara, Ocean County public health coordinator, also is deputy mayor of Plumsted and a longtime resident there.
New Jersey American's Mount Holly water system, which serves about 1,400 Plumsted residents and some Burlington County towns, had largely low susceptibility ratings for contaminants, according to the DEP's source water report for the system.
"I think it's great that we're at a minimal exposure," Przywara said.
This story includes material from previous Press stories.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 12/19/04
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