According to the ad, during routine cleaning of a settlement basin, sediment was stirred up and entered the water system and overburdened the filters of the system. This caused turbid water in excess of the 1 NTU standard to enter the distribution system of water that Aqua New Jersey purchases from NJAW or it's Lawrenceville customers. The incident occurred on Thursday, September 23, 2010.
The ad goes on as follows:
What does this mean?
This is not an emergency. I it had been you would have been notified within 24 hours. Turbidity is not harmful in itself. High turbidity increases the chance that water might contain disease-causing organisms.
What should I do?
You do not need to boil your water or take other corrective actions.
So what we want to know is this:
If the incident above is being treated as a non-emergency and notification wasn't required within 24 hours and boiling water wasn't required, what really happened at the Trenton Water Works (TWW) between October 2 and October 8 that made the City of Trenton and the DEP issue "boil water advisories" repeatedly from the 4th through the 7th?
Doesn't it seem likely that the situation with the TWW was somewhat more serious than the NJAW event of September 24? But the city has repeatedly told us there was no risk and that there was no evidence of contamination. At the same time, we were continually advised to boil water and, if our water temperature was lower than 113 degrees Fahrenheit to drain, flush and refill our hot water tanks. And why haven't the results of the water tests conducted between October 3 and October 7 been made public?
We don't consider ourselves prone to conspiracy theories but there certainly seems to be more to the story than the Mack administration AND New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection have so far let on.
Our water is running clear now, how about our government officials come clean.
5 comments:
I think that our advisories came about because nobody at the plant gave a clear answer as to exactly what happened. The water company ad is just an effort for the company to show what goody-two shoes they are. It is probably also a state requirement that they provide the notification in the mailings.
The format of the ad is consistent with the format of a template included in the EPA Public Notification Handbook. If Trenton had violated the turbidity standard, it would have been required to publish a similarly looking notice but with specifics related to the where and when the standard was exceeded.
From published reports, it now appears that the Trenton Plant did not violate any water quality standard. There has been no source that reported this including the City, the NJDEP and the Trenton Water Works employee who went to NJDEP. If that is true, the question then is where did the “dirty” water come from and what caused the “dirty” water to be delivered to some customers. From the story and video about the employee, there were actions taken to increase the pressure in an area of the system that was experiencing low pressure due to the depletion of the water in the reservoir. To increase the pressure in that area various valves had to opened or closed. During that operation, the pumping station that provides supply and pressure to most of the system either shutdown or was delivering insufficient supply, which resulted in a much lower pressure experienced by water users. This could have happened if a valve in a water main supplying the pumping station was closed instead of another valve that should have been closed.
When there is a significant reduction in pressure, it can cause water to flow in different directions in the water mains as water from storage tanks flows from the tanks to areas with lower elevations. When this occurs, as when fire hydrants are opened, it can stir up sediment that is in the water mains and when water taps are opened the “dirty” water from the water mains enters properties.
Pressure reduction or loss can occur as a result of a large water main break or failure. Typically, when this happens, boil water orders are issued and are kept in place until standard tests show that the water is free of bacteria. Under a low or no pressure condition, there is a concern that there could have been backflow from properties into the system. That concern is a primary reason why there is a boil water order issued.
Before the boil water order is lifted, water samples are taken and then tested. The tests require that a 24-hour period elapse before the tests show whether the sample is positive or negative for bacteria. Tests were probably taken on Tuesday, which would mean the results would be ready on Wednesday. In some areas, the boil water order was lifted, which could have been due negative tests for that area. For the areas that were did not receive a lifting of the boil water order until Thursday, there may have been a problem with some of the samples. It could be that some of the samples tested positive or that they were inconclusive. In either case additional samples would have been taken on Wednesday and the results of those samples available on Thursday.
Unfortunately, none of this has been clearly communicated to the public by either the City or the NJDEP. Hopefully, the report that the City will file with the NJDEP and should provide to the public will clarify what happened and provide assurances that what can be done to avoid it happening again will be done. If the scenario described above is close to what happened, the biggest failing that the City and the NJDEP caused was the failure to adequately notify the public in a timely and informative manner.
The format of the ad is consistent with the format of a template included in the EPA Public Notification Handbook. If Trenton had violated the turbidity standard, it would have been required to publish a similarly looking notice but with specifics related to the where and when the standard was exceeded.
From published reports, it now appears that the Trenton Plant did not violate any water quality standard. There has been no source that reported this including the City, the NJDEP and the Trenton Water Works employee who went to NJDEP. If that is true, the question then is where did the “dirty” water come from and what caused the “dirty” water to be delivered to some customers. From the story and video about the employee, there were actions taken to increase the pressure in an area of the system that was experiencing low pressure due to the depletion of the water in the reservoir. To increase the pressure in that area various valves had to opened or closed. During that operation, the pumping station that provides supply and pressure to most of the system either shutdown or was delivering insufficient supply, which resulted in a much lower pressure experienced by water users. This could have happened if a valve in a water main supplying the pumping station was closed instead of another valve that should have been closed.
When there is a significant reduction in pressure, it can cause water to flow in different directions in the water mains as water from storage tanks flows from the tanks to areas with lower elevations. When this occurs, as when fire hydrants are opened, it can stir up sediment that is in the water mains and when water taps are opened the “dirty” water from the water mains enters properties.
Pressure reduction or loss can occur as a result of a large water main break or failure. Typically, when this happens, boil water orders are issued and are kept in place until standard tests show that the water is free of bacteria. Under a low or no pressure condition, there is a concern that there could have been backflow from properties into the system. That concern is a primary reason why there is a boil water order issued.
Before the boil water order is lifted, water samples are taken and then tested. The tests require that a 24-hour period elapse before the tests show whether the sample is positive or negative for bacteria. Tests were probably taken on Tuesday, which would mean the results would be ready on Wednesday. In some areas, the boil water order was lifted, which could have been due negative tests for that area. For the areas that were did not receive a lifting of the boil water order until Thursday, there may have been a problem with some of the samples. It could be that some of the samples tested positive or that they were inconclusive. In either case additional samples would have been taken on Wednesday and the results of those samples available on Thursday.
Unfortunately, none of this has been clearly communicated to the public by either the City or the NJDEP. Hopefully, the report that the City will file with the NJDEP and should provide to the public will clarify what happened and provide assurances that what can be done to avoid it happening again will be done. If the scenario described above is close to what happened, the biggest failing that the City and the NJDEP caused was the failure to adequately notify the public in a timely and informative manner.
We don't necessarily disagree...but we're still wondering why there has been no further word from the Mack Administration regarding just what happened, when, where and what the problem was.
All we're asking for is full disclosure and open communication.
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