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Drinking Water Quality Institute’s Expertise Must Inform DEP Managers

NJ DEP Commissioner LaTourette’s recent Administrative Order No. 2024 – 15 that issued a drought warning explicitly requires that DEP decisions consider risks and impacts on water quality. Specifically, see paragraphs #5 and #6 (emphasis mine):

5. These reductions to reservoir releases and passing flows and any further modification thereto are subject to evaluation of downstream conditions, and maintenance of associated passing flows and water quality.

6. These modified reservoir releases and passing flows shall remain in place until otherwise revised by any future order or directive. The Director of the DEP Division of Water Supply and Geoscience (Director) and/or her designee(s) shall coordinate with water providers to assess the potential for water quality degradation associated with any reductions or transfers of water hereby ordered.

Despite these concerns about impacts on water quality and the safety of drinking water, those concerns have been ignored completely by the media.

DEP water managers are geologists, engineers, and technicians that lack training and expertise in public health issues (toxicology, risk assessment, water quality, etc). They are professionally biased (that is not a criticism).

Furthermore, DEP’s primary focus and over-riding objective during a drought is water quantity – making sure there is sufficient water supply to meet demand.

There is a direct conflict between the objective of maximizing water quantity (supply) and protecting water quality. (see the letter below and my prior posts that explain those conflicts).

Given this conflict, and DEP’s policy emphasis on water quantity (supply), and the professional bias and lack of expertise in the water quality and public health related aspects of drought, it is critically important to expand the scope of expertise and management objectives to assure protection of public health and water quality during drought management decision-making at DEP.

To provide this balance and expanded scope, I petitioned DEP Commissioner LaTourette to involve the Drinking Water Quality Institute (DWQI) – here’s my request:

Dear Commissioner LaTourette and the DWQI – Please accept these more specific additional public comments for the December 10 meeting:

1. According to Commissioner LaTourette’s ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER NO. 2024-15 (emphases mine): https://dep.nj.gov/wp-content/uploads/drought/ao2024-15.pdf

“5. These reductions to reservoir releases and passing flows and any further modification thereto are subject to evaluation of downstream conditions, and maintenance of associated passing flows and water quality.”

According to law:

“The DWQI is responsible for developing Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) or standards for hazardous contaminants in drinking water and for recommending those standards as well as recommendations for the implementation of the drinking water quality program to the Commissioner of the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP)”

The drought driven current flow conditions and ambient water quality in source waters raises concerns about unacceptable risks from regulated and unregulated contaminants. DWQI responsibilities are accordingly implicated and triggered.

These drought driven low flows also may conflict with the technical assumptions and conditions of DEP issued NJPDES permits, the derivation of surface water quality standards, and the methodologies for DWQI and DEP conduct of risk assessments.

The DWQI clearly has a role and responsibility to assess these risks, given current low flow conditions, significant potential public health risks, and conflicts with regulatory frameworks.

The DWQI must be involved in the analyses required by paragraph #5 of Administrative Order NO. 2024-15 regarding “evaluation of downstream conditions, and maintenance of associated passing flows and water quality.”

Accordingly, please provide a public briefing on the DWQI role in the aforementioned “evaluations”, and describe how the public can access the data and assessments of the risks implicit in these “evaluations”.

2. According to Commissioner LaTourette’s ADMINISTRATIVE ORDER NO. 2024-15 (emphases mine):

“6. These modified reservoir releases and passing flows shall remain in place until otherwise revised by any future order or directive. The Director of the DEP Division of Water Supply and Geoscience (Director) and/or her designee(s) shall coordinate with water providers to assess the potential for water quality degradation associated with any reductions or transfers of water hereby ordered.”

The recently adopted Statewide Water Supply Plan has adopted findings and policies that are directly relevant to the “potential for water quality degradation associated with any reductions or transfers of water” set forth in paragraph #6.

Specifically, the Water Supply Plan revealed disturbing conditions during the 2016-2017 drought. Specifically, 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.

Given these disturbing findings, what assurance does the public have that risks associated with “concerns around water chemistry” and the “potential for chemical interactions between different treated waters and how that could impact corrosion of lead in domestic plumbing or lead service lines” are fully understood, managed, and controlled?

The Department also found that “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.”

Where are the studies that analyze these risks and conclude that they are acceptable?

The Department found that “the concern of water quality impacts as a consequence of transferring water in ways beyond typical flows remains.”

The Department found that there are “damaging effects on public trust in the quality of their tap water.”

How are these risks and concerns being managed under the subject Order?

How can the Department and DWQI establish public trust in the absence of information and full transparency?

I appreciate your timely response.

Bill Wolfe

Low Flows Increase Concentration Of Pollutants In Rivers Used For Drinking Water And Pumped To Reservoirs

Low Flows Violate The Technical Conditions In DEP Water Pollution Permits, Water Quality Standards, And Risk Assessments

The NJ Drinking Water Quality Institute  (DWQI) just announced that it will meet on Tuesday, December 10, at 10:00 AM. The meeting will be a hybrid public meeting (in person and virtual) at the Public Hearing Room at DEP Headquarters at 401 E State St, Trenton, NJ.

According to DEP:

1984 amendments to the New Jersey Safe Drinking Water Act (Act) at N.J.S.A. 58:12A- 20, established New Jersey’s Drinking Water Quality Institute (DWQI) as well as the drinking water standard setting process.  The DWQI is responsible for developing Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCL) or standards for hazardous contaminants in drinking water and for recommending those standards as well as recommendations for the implementation of the drinking water quality program to the Commissioner of the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP).

The DWQI has been meeting sporadically over recent years – they used to meet on a regular quarterly basis  – and they did not post an agenda, so its hard to tell what’s going on and why the meeting was called right now.

(Wow, the Health Effects subcommittee hasn’t met since 2009, over 15 years! Their last meeting was the controversial episode that led Christie DEP Commissioner Martin to suspend DWQI meetings for almost 5 years, see:

Why Christie DEP Commissioner Martin Shut Down The Drinking Water Quality Institute

I doubt but will assume that the December 10 meeting could be related to the drought. Regardless, the drought has significant impacts on NJ’s water quality and therefore on the risks to drinking water.

So I will put the drought water quality and public health issues on the DWQI agenda via submission of these comments. I am submitting them 2 weeks prior to the meeting to give DEP time to prepare public responses during the meeting and avoid the severe time restrictions (3 minutes) DEP puts on public comments. DEP can’t accuse me of ambushing them and use that to avoid responses in public.

I recently wrote about how the drought reduces stream and river flows and therefore increases the concentrations of pollutants in rivers used for drinking water. Drought driven extreme low flows violate core scientific and technical assumptions DEP relies on in setting waste pollution discharge permits, surface water quality standards, and human health risk assessments. But I failed to also mention that millions of gallons of polluted river water is pumped to pristine NJ reservoirs, often triggering algae blooms that require additional disinfection treatment, which increases risks posed by toxic disinfection byproducts, see:

• Drought Significantly Increases Risks Of Pollutants In Drinking Water – These Risks Are Being Suppressed

• In Response To The Last Drought, The DEP Created Exactly The Same Drinking Water Risks As In Flint, Michigan

Many of these pollutants are unregulated chemicals. DEP identified over 600 unregulated chemicals in NJ’s drinking water. There is little or no systematic monitoring of these chemicals and no health effects data, see:

Murphy DEP Acknowledges Threats Of Hundreds Of Unregulated Chemicals In Drinking Water – Signals Major New Regulatory Requirements To Protect Public Health

Read the stunning findings by DEP in DEP’s Denial Of A Petition For Rulemaking (hit link to or see: 55 NJR 2430(a)) (verbatim quotes):

• In 2003, the Department partnered with the USGS to evaluate the occurrence of contaminants of emerging concern in New Jersey’s streams and drinking water supplies. The study utilized analytical methods developed by USGS for the determination of more than 95 contaminants typically found in domestic, industrial, and agricultural wastewaters, including pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, hormones, personal care products, and various industrial and commercial products. This study found trace level organic contaminants that represent a broad suite of uses and origins can enter and persist in ambient waters and subsequently occur in finished drinking water supplies.

• [In groundwater] Seventy-two percent of the pesticides and volatile organic compounds sampled are not currently regulated.

• in March 2003, the Department published results regarding the occurrence of approximately 600 “tentatively identified compounds,” or TIC, in [drinking] water systems

• toxicity information was available for only 22 percent of the TICs found in the New Jersey water samples, and that the information that was available was mostly regarded acute health effects. Information on chronic health effects is necessary to establish drinking water standard

• the Department developed a list of potential options to address unregulated contaminants and sought public comment on them in a February 2004 Interested Party Review (see 36 N.J.R. 889(b)). Based on the comments received, the Department determined that implementing the water treatment technology approach would likely have the best outcome of the options presented. Of the few treatment technologies available to remove the various unregulated contaminants from drinking water, granular activated carbon (GAC) seemed to be the most promising.

Over 20 YEARS ago, DEP scientists recommended that DEP mandate GAC treatment at drinking water systems to remove unregulated chemicals, instead of the flawed current individual chemical specific MCL approach.

These public health risks alone – which are exacerbated by drought and low flow conditions – are a sufficient basis for Governor Murphy to declare a drought emergency.

Worse, according to DEP’s own scientific Reports, DEP has known for over a decade that there is currently available cost effective drinking water treatment technology to remove virtually all of these chemicals to below detection limits, see:

• Investigations Related to a “Treatment-Based” Regulatory Approach  to Address Unregulated Contaminants in Drinking Water

DEP Completed The Study Required By Senator Smith’s “Forever Chemicals” Bill A Decade Ago

The Murphy DEP has not only refused to address these public health risks and regulate, they have tried to change the subject, see:

The NJ Drinking Water Quality Institute Is Ignoring Pharmaceuticals, Endocrine Disruptors, and Hundreds of Toxic Chemicals They KNOW Are In Your Drinking Water

We will share the comment letter to the DEP and DWQI in our next post.

Chris Hedges Links The Genocidal Fate Of Palestinians To Climate Chaos

I’ve been thinking along similar dark lines, but was just blown away right now in listening to Chris Hedges deliver an absolutely devastating speech at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Hedges crystalizes exactly what is really going on (listen, at time 35:00):

As climate change imperils survival, as resources become scarce, as migration becomes an imperative for millions, as agricultural yields decline, as coastal areas are flooded, as droughts and wildfires proliferate, as States fail, as armed resistance movements rise to battle their oppressors along with their proxies, genocide will not be an anomaly. It will be the norm.

This explains so many things.

I realize that this is terrifying to even consider, but it is our reality right now.

All people of good faith must rise to resist – despair, hopelessness, passivity, and nihilism are not options.

High school music, the context changes, but the meaning remains.

From the Moody Blues album “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour” (1970)

… I’ve been thinking about our fortune
And I’ve decided that we’re really not to blame
For the love that’s deep inside us now is still the same

… And the sounds we make together
Is the music to the story in your eyes
It’s been shining down upon me now, I realize

… Listen to the tide slowly turning
Wash all our heartaches away
We’re part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build another day

… But I’m frightened for your children
That the life that we are living is in vain
And the sunshine we’ve been waiting for will turn to rain.

I wonder whatever became of Sally Cregan?

DRBC Slow To Issue Drought Emergency

Drought Conditions Are Worse Than They Appear

Shaky Start For New DRBC Executive Director Kristen Bowman Kavanagh

The Delaware River is the source of water supply for millions of people in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Competition for scarce water is fierce among the 4 states, particularly under drought conditions.

I took the above screen shot of Delaware River flows last week (11/13) as part of my criticism of the NJ DEP’s slow response to the drought.

The flows in the river are so low that they threaten the City of Philadelphia’s water supply. And they’ve been that low for weeks.

Low flows in the river cause the salt water line to migrate up river, and threaten Philadelphia’s water supply intake on the river.

The Delaware River Basin Commission manages the flows in the river. They do this primarily by mandating releases from the several reservoirs in the watershed, mostly that serve NYC demand. During drought, when river flows are low, which threaten Philadelphia’s supply, more water must be released from the reservoir to maintain adequate flows. However, those reservoirs are needed to supply NYC demands, so DRBC must balance river flows with competing NYC demands.

Finally, the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) held a virtual public hearing on Tuesday to consider issuing a drought emergency.

The NJ Spotlight coverage of that hearing got it wrong, see:

• Delaware River Basin managers could take conservation measures if drought worsens

Here’s how they reported the direct conflicts and competing demands for NYC reservoir storage and maintaining adequate river flows to prevent migration of the salt line:

When the basin enters drought operations, it triggers conservation actions such as smaller out-of-basin water diversions by New York City and New Jersey, water conservation orders or reduced river flow targets, which allow upstream reservoirs to release less water.

These actions help the commission prepare to repel the salt front from drinking water intakes if needed by releasing more fresh water from upstream reservoirs.

Say what?

The first paragraph talks about reduced river flows and releasing LESS water from reservoirs. Both management actions would reduce river flow and allow the salt line to migrate up river and threaten Philadelphia’s intake.

The next paragraph, in direct contradiction, claims that there would be more water released from reservoirs to protect the salt front from impacting intakes.

In addition to this huge contradiction, the Spotlight story fails to report actual river flows, or whether or not they trigger the DRBC drought management plan requirements.

Under the DRBC Drought Operating Plan and according to Delaware River Basin Commission rules, when the flow at Trenton goes below 3,000 CFS for 5 consecutive days,

Lower Basin Drought

Just as there is minimum flow objective of 1,750 cubic feet per second (cfs) at Montague, N.J., the DRBC Water Code sets a minimum flow objective of 3,000 cfs at Trenton, N.J. (head of tide).

Finally, the story downplays a significant factor: NYC has not been taking its full allocation from the reservoirs, due to ongoing repairs to an aqueduct:

DRBC officials expect the New York City reservoirs to be under increased demand soon, as the city resumes its diversions from the reservoirs for drinking water. The city announced Monday it is pausing an aqueduct repair project that had stopped those diversions amid concerns about the drought.

“We might enter drought operations, and that’s because we expect a significant draw on the combined storage in the New York City reservoirs,” Shallcross said.

This means that the current storage in the NY reservoirs is artificially higher than it really should be, because NYC has not been taking all the water it is entitled to take. This sends a misleading message to DRBC planners in terms of the severity of the drought

This means that the actual drought conditions are far worse.

This is a very shaky start for recently installed new DRBC Executive Director Kristen Bowman Kavanagh.