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DEP Denies Petition To Force Stronger New Rules To Protect Drinking Water

In the December 4, 2023 edition of the NJ Register (see: 55 NJR 2430(a), the DEP issued a formal denial of my petition to force DEP to respond to long known threats to public health posed by the presence of hundreds of unregulated chemicals DEP’s own research has documented to be present in NJ drinking water.

These currently unregulated chemicals include a toxic soup of pharmaceutical chemicals known to be “endocrine disruptors” and industrial chemicals known or suspected to cause cancer and other serious adverse health effects, even at very low levels (parts per billion and trillion).

In response to their own science that exposed these risks, 15 years ago DEP proposed a new regulatory strategy to require treatment to remove this entire class of chemicals, instead of going through the incredibly slow and expensive individual chemical by chemical risk assessment based regulatory process for adopting current drinking water standards known as MCL’s (for “maximum contaminant levels“). DEP is way behind in adopting science and risk assessment based recommendations by the NJ Drinking Water Quality Institute on more than a dozen chemicals already, and it typically takes many years for DEP to adopt an MCL.

US EPA explains why the current MCL process is broken:

“The current approach to drinking water protection is focused on a detailed assessment of each individual contaminant of concern and can take many years. This approach not only results in slow progress in addressing unregulated contaminants but also fails to take advantage of strategies for enhancing health protection cost‐effectively, including advanced treatment technologies that address several contaminants at once. The outlined vision seeks to use existing authorities to achieve greater protection more quickly and cost‐effectively.” ~~~ (US EPA, March 2010)

But for over a decade, DEP has dragged its feet and worked hard to keep these threats below the public radar.

The limited NJ media coverage of these issues has been narrowly focused on individual unregulated chemicals, e..g. “forever chemicals”. Worse, media coverage not only ignores the much larger threats posed by hundreds of these chemicals, but their coverage is framed in a way to mislead the public and create the false impression that DEP is doing a very good job. NJ Spotlight reporter Jon Hurdle’s coverage of “forever chemicals” is a prime example of these media failures.

But my petition forced DEP – for the first time, to my knowledge – to acknowledge the problem, summarize the science, and, most importantly, signal a regulatory response. I strongly urge media and readers to read both my petition and the DEP’s rambling denial document. Here’s the key DEP conclusion:

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Department acknowledges that research conducted to date has demonstrated the presence of unregulated contaminants in water supplies. As described above, the Department is involved in varied and continuous efforts to obtain more complete information about the occurrence, toxicity, and possible treatment approaches for these contaminants. As the results of these ongoing efforts are analyzed, the Department will determine whether science supports initiating a regulatory monitoring and treatment program for currently unregulated contaminants.

So, the writing is on the wall. DEP is signaling that they can no longer ignore the problem and likely will do something on the regulatory front.

Which is very likely why – as I wrote Sunday – the corporate water companies are seeking to ram a bill through the lame duck legislature in oder to avoid the costs of these new treatment requirements and pass them all on to consumers, with no regulatory review of the economic justification and profits they are making.

Of course, if that bill passes and is signed into law by the Governor, it will make it much harder for DEP to adopt stringent new regularly requirements to mandate removal of these chemicals, because DEP will face strong political pushback based on the costs and impacts to consumers, as the private corporate water companies get a huge pass from this billion dollar problem.

And NJ Democrats, who control both the Legislature and the Governor’s executive branch (DEP and BPU) power, are supporting and pushing the corporate agenda.