State voided Trenton Water Works tests, levied $235K fine

Records released by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection also show that the winter shutdown of the water plant was compounded by a string of errors made by water utility workers.

Critical failures and fraud that surfaced last fall and winter at the beleaguered Trenton Water Works were deeper and more potentially harmful to water quality than previously known, according to documents released by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Last November, the utility that serves more than 200,000 Mercer County area residents announced that a worker was caught allegedly filing fake reports over a 13-month period from October 2022 through December 2023.

Cesar Lugo was fired and later indicted by a state grand jury on criminal charges, including official misconduct and theft. Officials said the 37-year-old Lugo sat at home falsifying data when he should have been in the field collecting samples.

The newly released documents reveal that Lugo’s alleged fraud forced the state to throw out a total of 2,172 water samples because their accuracy could not be verified. That amounts to 90 percent of the samples the utility should have taken over its 600-mile distribution system during the 13 months in question, the state said.

For failing to detect the fraud for so long, the Trenton Water Works was fined $235,000 for violating the New Jersey Safe Drinking Water Act, which regulates contaminants linked to human illness, such as fecal coliform and excessive chlorine.

The utility, however, never announced the fine or the full extent of the alleged fraud in an official notice to customers sent out in November 2024. The notice merely acknowledged that “a majority of samples collected by TWW” during the period were invalid. City officials also insisted that the 35 million gallons of water processed daily at the utility’s Delaware River filtration plant was safe. But with 9 out of every 10 samples tossed, it was unclear how they reached that conclusion.

Contacted on Monday, Michael Walker, a water works spokesman, said the November 2024 announcement complied with state reporting requirements. He said he was uncertain if the utility had paid the $235,000 fine or is appealing.

Walker took issue with another Department of Environmental Protection’s assertion detailed in the newly released document archive, this one involving the December 2024 failure of a $9 million intake system that forced the water plant to close temporarily, leaving customers to scramble for water.

After that failure, Trenton officials blamed the incident on a sudden buildup of tiny ice particles that choked the Delaware River, blocking intake screens in the new system.

In reality, state records show, the failure was compounded by a string of errors made by water utility workers. The errors included the failure to follow standard procedures for operating “air burst” systems designed to keep the intake mechanism clear. The utility also failed to remove a buildup of dirt and debris collecting in the system.

Walker said he “vehemently disagreed” that neglect had any role in the intake failure. The system, he said, had been designed and installed by a state consulting engineer and had worked flawlessly prior to the ice buildup.

“We’re still investigating what went wrong. But I can say with confidence that nothing was done wrong on our part,” Walker said.

He also dismissed suggestions that the intake of dirt and debris documented in the state records was linked to a massive riverbank project immediately upstream of the water plant in the months leading to failure. The project, a reclamation of the 36-acre Stacy Park, involved the wholesale removal of trees and nuisance vegetation.

Environmental regulators halted the project, which had never received the necessary state permits, citing destabilization and erosion of the riverbank.

“To make any connection between what happened to the intake system and the Stacy Park project is completely erroneous,” Walker said.

The new information detailing dysfunction at the Trenton Water Works comes at a critical juncture for the 200-year-old system, which is among the oldest public utilities of its kind in the nation.

In June, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn LaTourette made a 3.5-hour surprise inspection visit to the utility’s Delaware River plant, which has been under state supervision for more than two years following decades of treatment failures and blown deadlines for missing state and federal mandates.

An angry LaTourette later posted photos from inside the facility that he said represented “appalling conditions” and an imminent threat to public health and the safety of Trenton Water’s 115 employees.

His findings echoed recent consultant reports that described how management chaos, a lack of technical expertise, political corruption, and patronage had hobbled the water system. The reports called for a new management structure that would require the city of Trenton to share control of the utility with four surrounding communities in a new regional authority.

The suburban towns — Hamilton, Lawrence, Ewing and Hopewell — comprise 55 percent of all Trenton Water users.

“The time is long past due for a change that will provide safe and reliable drinking water here,” LaTourette said in an interview with The Jersey Vindicator last week. “Nobody is looking to take away Trenton’s asset… We’re trying to preserve it.”

LaTourette urged the Trenton City Council to endorse a study looking at a new regional authority. He also said the Department of Environmental Protection would now reduce most oversight and ramp up enforcement.

Two-term Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora, who was elected on a promise to reform the water agency, called LaTourette’s words “bullshit” in an interview with The Jersey Vindicator last week and said he would not allow Trenton and its 90,000 residents to be bullied.

The state, he said, fails to credit Trenton for making substantial changes recently, including a plan to hike rates that he says will finance more than $1 billion in improvements to the water works and its sprawling system of pipes and pump houses.

Gusciora said the state itself bears responsibility for “historically ignoring” the needs of his city, which is among the poorest and most crime-ridden in New Jersey.

“Trenton will continue working toward a lasting solution — but we’ll do it responsibly. What the state must also reckon with is its own historical neglect,” he wrote in a formal response this week to LaTourette’s criticisms. “The people of Trenton must be at the center of this process — not treated as an afterthought.”