Chlorine byproducts and dead-end pipes: Trenton Water remains in violation of NJ Safe Water Drinking Act

Trenton’s water utility, already under scrutiny for treatment failures and fraud in its water sampling program, notified customers in Mercer County this week that it has yet to fully resolve longstanding issues involving harmful chemicals in parts of its 650-mile distribution network.

In a letter to its more than 217,000 customers, Trenton Water Works said it remains in violation of the New Jersey Safe Drinking Water Act because it has failed to complete “approved remedial measures” to address periodic spikes of trihalomethanes, a byproduct of chlorine used to disinfect drinking water.

Excessive levels of the chemicals, which can damage the liver, kidneys and central nervous system, were recorded in the agency’s system over a 17-month period from July 2021 through September 2021 and from November 2021 through Dec. 15, 2022.

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Michael Walker, a spokesman for Trenton Water, stressed that water quality for all of the utility’s 215,000 users currently meets all standards. Instances of excessive trihalomethane buildup, he said, were limited to small areas within Trenton Water’s system, usually at sites where dead-end water mains prevent adequate flushing.

“This is not a systemic issue,” Walker said.

Last month, sampling at a site in Pennington near the Stop & Shop supermarket on Denow Road revealed slightly elevated levels of the chemical byproduct, according to the utility.

In an interview Friday, Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora said crews would “immediately” install an automatic flushing device at the site to prevent the buildup of the chemicals in standing water. “Unfortunately, some of our pipes are dead-end pipes, and the one in Pennington is one of them,” Gusciora said.

The device would be part of a comprehensive plan to install 170 water main “flushing assemblies” that Trenton Water says it will complete by mid-2025 to address the recurring chemical issue.

All water systems that use chlorine to disinfect water are required to check monthly for the buildup of byproducts. Trenton Water, which serves customers in the city of Trenton as well as Hamilton, Hopewell, Ewing, and Lawrence townships, monitors nine sites for byproducts as well as parameters like pH, temperature, chlorine, and organic carbon levels.

Trenton’s 224-year-old water works, like many urban water agencies, faces chronic money and manpower problems as it works to distribute 28 million gallons of drinking water daily.

The agency says it has dozens of unfilled staff positions, many for specialized tech workers that have proven hard to find. Over the next 15 years, Trenton Water says it will need $1 billion to make long-delayed capital improvements that regulators have demanded for years.

Officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection remain a periodic presence at Trenton Water facilities, overseeing an agency that has been in violation of state and federal orders for much of the past half-century. Gusciora said DEP officials are on site at least every other week “watching operations.”

In the past decade alone, the water plant was forced to shut down 40 times for treatment failures and missteps that have at times exposed customers to human pathogens and toxic chemicals. Two years ago, regulators issued a “unilateral administrative order” demanding the agency address systemic weaknesses in treatment procedures and facilities.

An order issued by state regulators in October noted that Trenton Water had failed to adequately maintain its distribution system and address deficiencies that potentially exposed water users to Legionella, the deadly bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease.

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Two weeks ago, Trenton Water Works revealed yet another failure: Between October 2022 and the end of 2023, a rogue employee falsified required testing data for levels of pH, iron, manganese, and contaminants such as coliform and E. coli, according to a Nov. 27 letter sent to water users.

The worker was placed on leave and later fired after a Department of Environmental Protection investigation found that most of the samples recorded by the worker were false.

In yet another potential setback, Trenton Water also recently acknowledged that federal investigators were looking into possible fraud by a contractor hired to replace lead service lines to homes and businesses across the city.

The contractor, JAS Group of West Windsor, received a $7.9 million contract in 2021 to replace lead pipes in accordance with a statewide law mandating replacement of all lead pipes in New Jersey by 2031. The company’s founder and a second JAS employee were arrested in October and charged with fraud for allegedly faking replacement work in Newark.

An employee of the firm reported that a similar scam took place in Trenton, according to documents reviewed by The Jersey Vindicator.

Now, officials are reviewing work reports and revisiting work sites across Trenton to determine if the lead replacement assigned to JAS Group was actually done. Trenton Water, meanwhile, says it may not have enough money to meet the state deadline to remove the lead.

Gusciora, a former state legislator who was elected in 2018 partly on a promise to fix the water works, said the agency has made significant progress despite the recent setbacks. The most recent trihalomethane bump, he said, was an isolated blip in an improving picture.

“Of all New Jersey utilities, we’re not the worst,” Gusciora said. “But there are always going to be hiccups, and this is one of them. There are times where even the best water utilities have been issued violations.”