Zero News Coverage Of Huge Landmines Buried In DEP Water Supply Plan
No Linkage Between Drought And DEP’s Role In Managing Water Supply
Drought Raises The Same Risks Of Drinking Water Catastrophe As In Flint, Michigan
I’ve written many times to criticize the complete failure of media and environmental groups to connect reality to the DEP’s policies and regulatory responsibilities.
The news media seems incapable of writing a policy or regulatory story and the environmental groups no longer even try to engage the DEP policy, planning and regulatory issues.
As a result, DEP escapes accountability and the economic interests that DEP regulates evade regulatory oversight, while public health risks go unaddressed.
A perfect example of these failures is the current drought – which ironically is occurring just weeks after the DEP adopted the Statewide Water Supply Plan on September 23, 2024..
Thus far, the news coverage has been limited to reporting on heightened risks of wildfire and impacts on farmers and cranberry growers in the Pinelands. Surprisingly, the role of the climate emergency has been mentioned, but not emphasized.
(The Murphy DEP loves to play the wildfire card. It is a great way to divert attention away from issues DEP does not want to discuss and make DEP appear to be aggressive.)
Incredibly, the fact that DEP just adopted a Statewide Water Supply Plan just one month ago has not even been mentioned by the media or environmental groups.
That Plan governs the State’s drinking water supply – including drought management (see Chapter 7).
The Plan is loaded with important information, including multiple admissions of regulatory failures and mismanagement by DEP that have put people and ecosystems at risk (more on these issues forthcoming).
The last thing that DEP Commissioner LaTourette wants is for people to read that plan and ask informed critical questions about how DEP is managing the water resources of the State (more on these issues forthcoming).
At the time the 2024 Water Supply Plan was adopted by DEP, I wrote one post about just one water quality issue, not related to the drought. I exposed how, despite the rhetoric, that the Murphy DEP was not serious and was avoiding grappling with huge economic and regulatory issues, see:
For just one example today:
The DEP Water Supply Plan raises red flags over exactly the same issues that led to the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, where in 2014 “the city switched its drinking water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River in a cost-saving move.”
In just now reading Chapter 7 on drought management, I came across this gem.
Does anyone realize that the people of NJ faced – and still face – exactly the same risks that caused the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan? And that DEP ORDERED the changes that created these risks, even AFTER the Flint crisis emerged?
One of the first things that DEP does in managing a drought is to Order the redirection (or transfer) of water from one drinking water system with a surplus to another with a deficit, though a series of interconnections in the distribution system. However, as exposed by the Flint crisis, this creates huge public health risks due to changes in water chemistry of the source water.
Here’s how DEP tries to obfuscate that set of problems and cover up the fact that they created a Flint like crisis in NJ, but without any mention of Flint: (at page 204 – 205 of Chapter 7):
as part of the 2016 Drought Warning, water transfers were ordered between several systems in order to preserve storage for those systems at highest risk. As a result, an estimated 1.8 billion gallons of water was preserved in critical reservoirs as a result of water transfers ordered between 2016 and 2017.
However, one finding from the 2016-2017 drought was reluctance from many water suppliers to make the complete transfers as ordered due to concerns around water chemistry. Following the 2015 re-emphasis within DWSG on the implementation of the Lead and Copper Rule, many water suppliers became more aware of the potential for chemical interactions between different treated waters and how that could impact corrosion of lead in domestic plumbing or lead service lines. Since then, water suppliers, particularly in the Northeast region have improved their understanding of the chemical interactions of their waters. However, the concern of water quality impacts as a consequence of transferring water in ways beyond typical flows remains. Reversing flows at interconnections or distribution and transmission mains can disturb biofilms and mineral deposits within distribution infrastructure and can create poor water quality conditions for customers. While in acute emergency conditions transient water quality issues like this may be overlooked by some customers, it may still have overall damaging effects on public trust in the quality of their tap water. Regular maintenance and proactive efforts to enhance distribution water quality remain essential to minimize these disturbances when they do occur.
In that short passage, DEP buried the Flint crisis. The DEP also makes NO MENTION of similar risks to NJ drinking water.
DEP then went on to create the misleading appearance that their efforts to refocus on lead exposure issues (i.e. the “lead copper rule”)- not the Flint disaster – is what led to “improved understanding”. So they not only suppress Flint risks, they take credit for leadership, when they unknowingly created exactly the same problems as we saw in Flint.
Incredibly, despite these water quality and public health risks – which DEP created by Ordering the transfer of water in 2016 – DEP mischaracterizes the issue as merely “damaging effects on public trust in the quality of their tap water.” Say what? It’s only appearance and trust, and not unsafe levels of lead and other pollutants in drinking water?
Finally, despite these known risks of transfers of water from one source to another through interconnections, DEP continues to rely on this strategy and even recommended expansion of interconnections:
Additional ongoing work by the DEP which is referenced in the Plan, also identifies the need to expand the existing interconnection network to ensure that drinking water remains available even during major emergencies.
Does anyone think we should be creating MORE Flint like drinking water risks? The Murphy DEP does.
If people and environmental groups were to read the DEP’s Water Supply Plan and start to ask critical questions, we might begin the process of developing public awareness and demands for reforms.
As journalist Bill Greider wrote, “Who will tell the people?”.
