Staggering cost of repairs lets sewage befoul NJ rivers

This story was first published Jan. 6, 2013

When superstorm Sandy knocked out North Jersey's largest sewage treatment plant, billions of gallons of raw or partially treated sewage poured into rivers and bays, setting off alarms from health and environmental officials. But while the event was dramatic, it was not unique.

More than 23 billion gallons of raw sewage and other pollutants pour into New Jersey's rivers and bays each year because aging sewer systems are overwhelmed during heavy rains. The raw sewage and toxic waste -- enough to fill the Oradell Reservoir nearly seven times over -- spill from 217 outfall pipes into the Passaic, Hackensack, Hudson and other rivers and bays, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

The overflows occur dozens of times each year, whenever there's a significant rainfall.

The sewage puts human health and the environment at risk -- particularly at a time when more people are discovering North Jersey's rivers for recreation and the state's beaches remain a vital economic engine.

Federal law had called for such spills to be eliminated by 1985, but the sewage continues to flow because local governments say they can't afford to repair the systems. In Ridgefield Park, such a project could cost as much as $100 million. The price is estimated at $1 billion in Paterson. Federal and state money to address the problem has been made available over the years, but environmentalists and politicians alike said it has not been nearly enough. Even less costly stopgap measures, such as adequately identifying the outfall pipes with signs, have not been properly addressed, environmentalists argue.

For the increasing numbers of people who use the rivers, the sewage can cause illnesses such as gastroenteritis -- a stomach inflammation that causes vomiting and diarrhea -- as well as hepatitis and skin, respiratory and ear infections. The sewage also can inflict economic pain, such as lost revenue from beach closures, fish kills and closed shellfish beds.

"The release of large quantities of raw sewage into New Jersey waters is a serious problem that needs to be solved sooner rather than later," said Judith Enck, regional administrator of the EPA. "It has dragged on for too long."

The outfall pipes are part of older systems in Ridgefield Park, Hackensack, Paterson and other communities that rely on sewage lines to handle both sewage and storm-water runoff from roadways and parking lots. Normally, the lines carry the sewage and storm water to wastewater treatment plants. But when heavy rains hit, these systems can't handle the deluge. The excess is dumped out of the system through outfall pipes, called combined sewer overflows, which empty into local waterways.

North Jersey's annual sewage overflow runs into the billions of gallons, but varies year to year based on the number of storms and amount of rainfall.

Along with the untreated sewage, the overflow pipes dump other pollutants into the rivers. The runoff from a rainstorm carries everything that has dripped onto roadways -- grease, oil and benzene from cars and paint and chemicals people may have poured down storm drains. It also carries fertilizer runoff, including phosphorous and nitrates that cause algae blooms, spawning fish kills.

Monthly water sampling along the Hudson, including several locations where the river borders Bergen County, often shows dramatic increases of enterococcus -- a bacterial component of sewage -- in the days following a heavy rainfall, with rates often in violation of federal standards.

When superstorm Sandy crippled the state's largest sewage treatment plant, the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission's facility could no longer accept the 250 million gallons of sewage it normally handles each day. Raw sewage backed up in the lines, and for several days 840 million gallons of it poured -- untreated -- into local waters, much of it into the Passaic River.

Coliform is a bacteria associated with human waste. Even a week after the storm, federal officials measured coliform levels at the mouth of the Passaic as high as 1,500 units -- the acceptable level is considered 14 units. During the three weeks after Sandy, as the facility was brought back into service, an estimated 4.4 billion gallons of partially treated sewage was released into New York Harbor, said Mike DeFrancisci, the commission's executive director.

"The discharge of raw sewage and other contaminants into water bodies is one of the most serious threats to water quality facing the state of New Jersey," Enck said in a letter last year to New Jersey environmental officials.

The concern comes as North Jersey's rivers are generally getting cleaner as industry leaves the region and sewage treatment facilities -- though not sewer systems -- have improved. That improving water quality has drawn more people to the rivers to canoe, kayak, boat or participate on crew teams. But while much of the remaining industrial pollution is trapped in the sediment of the rivers, it is the bacteria in the water from the sewage that can cause the most immediate harm to residents.

Bill Sheehan, the Hackensack Riverkeeper, said people don't seem to know about the dangers posed by the sewer outfall pipes. "I've got dozens of pictures of people in canoes who jumped out, people using Jet Skis who fell off or waded into the river to cool off," Sheehan said. At Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus, he saw a family set out blankets on the riverbank. "The kids had water toys and they'd dive off the dock and swim, unaware of the potential health danger," he said.

"I bring up the issue and people always look at me with a blank stare or say, 'I thought they fixed that problem years ago,' " he said.

Many people who suffer cases of swimmer's ear or gastrointestinal illness after swimming in polluted water at beaches or in rivers may never make the connection, so numerous cases go unreported, environmental groups said. The EPA has said the likely range of illness attributable to sewage contamination at the nation's beaches is between 1.8 million and 3.5 million cases. And a growing number of academic studies have linked human illness to storm runoff.

For instance, a University of California, Irvine study that looked at rates of gastrointestinal illness among surfers at Southern California beaches between 2008 and 2010 found higher occurrences shortly after storms than during dry conditions. And a look at cases of gastroenteritis and diarrhea at a children's hospital in Wisconsin from 2002 to 2007 found an 11 percent increase after rainstorms.

Officials at the state Department of Environmental Protection agree the overflows need to stop. "It's not acceptable to have untreated sewage going into our water bodies," said Michelle Siekerka, the DEP's assistant commissioner for water management.

But the state hasn't ordered communities to remove the outfalls and install separate lines to handle sewage and storm water because of the cost, she said. "Many community governments are cash-strapped right now and local sewer authorities have not set aside money for capital improvements," Siekerka said.

Environmental advocacy groups have grown impatient -- and have taken the state to court to force the state into action. The DEP "has developed a catalog of excuses instead of water protection measures," the environmental groups said in court documents. The groups say the DEP does not require public notice about overflows and that in some cases there aren't even any signs to let the public know that raw sewage was coming out of the pipes.

Siekerka said the DEP requires signs at outfall pipes, but acknowledged they are often small and the print is hard to read. The state is considering new rules about the minimum size of the print for signs, she said. The DEP is also assessing how to provide timely public notification when overflows occur, through an emergency notification system or posting notices on the Web, she said.

While they haven't been able to remove the pipes, Siekerka said the DEP has made progress on the overflow problem by requiring the installation of netting or other devices at outfall pipes to prevent solids and floatables -- cans, bottles and other debris -- from flowing into the rivers.

"We've been successful in getting nets installed on 91 percent of combined sewer overflows. That's huge," Siekerka said.

Ridgefield Park has six combined sewer outfalls and averages 48 overflows each year -- which dump 2.2 million gallons of sewage and storm water into the Hackensack. In 1999, the town spent $1.5 million to install nets at each outfall pipe, along with giant concrete chambers that hold the nets in place and the winch mechanisms needed to lift them for cleaning.

The nets have captured everything from plastic bottles to dead rats -- 21 tons of debris a year, said Alan O'Grady, the village public works superintendent. Ridgefield goes through about 100 nets -- at $140 each -- annually because they get torn by the flow of water and trapped debris, he said.

But the nets don't keep raw sewage out of the waterways," said Debbie Mans, the NY/NJ Baykeeper. "The DEP has required the towns to install netting to catch floatables, but they haven't dealt with the bacteria side of things," she said.

To end the overflows from Ridgefield Park's six combined sewer pipes would cost between $31 million and $100 million, depending on the chosen remedy, O'Grady said. Options include building small facilities at each outfall to treat the water before it enters the river, which would cost up to $50 million. A tunnel running 4,900 feet along the river's edge to temporarily hold the storm runoff would cost $74 million. The most complete option would be adding a separate storm-water line so there would be one dedicated solely to sewage and one for storm water. That would cost up to $100 million.

"Either way it's going to be a lot of money," O'Grady said. "It's not like we're trying to duck the problem. We'd love to have the use of the river again. But we need guidance -- and some financial help."

Hackensack is in the midst of rehabilitating a section of Main Street and plans include separating sewer lines there. "It won't eliminate our combined sewer overflow discharges but will significantly reduce what's going into the river," said City Manager Stephen Lo Iocono.

The cost of other work has proved to be overwhelming. The city studied separating a 10-square-block section of line in 2006 and found that it would cost $30 million, he said. "The numbers are so overwhelming," Lo Iocono said. "The financial burden is just too great."

Paterson, which has 26 sewer outfall pipes along the Passaic River, budgets $1.2 million in capital projects each year for sewerwork. Over the past few years, the city has turned several thousand feet of combined lines into separate lines, said Christopher Coke, Paterson's director of public works.

But to separate all the lines would cost in excess of $1 billion, he said. "It will be a long process."

In 2000, the EPA estimated that nationally, it would cost more than $50 billion to fix the combined sewer problem. Some federal money has been made available over the years -- through 2006, states funneled about $5.3 billion in federal money as loans to combined sewer projects, but a 2009 congressional report conceded that "federal assistance has been small relative to the overall needs."

The 2009 economic stimulus bill included $30 million for eight New Jersey combined sewer projects.

To spur local governments to tackle the issue, the Christie administration plans to make partial loan forgiveness available. "We are looking to incentivize right conduct rather than mandate it," Siekerka said.

State Sen. Bob Smith, D-Piscataway, has introduced a bill that would create a $5 million fund to help pay for the work. Another bill would create a more permanent source of money by letting communities create storm-water utilities, which could charge fees to facilities that generate the most storm-water runoff -- office parks and shopping malls, for instance.

The Legislature passed a similar measure last term to help reduce pollution in Barnegat Bay, but Governor Christie vetoed it, arguing that it was another tax.

"He's not wrong," Smith said. "But there's no free lunch."