Passaic/Hackensack sewage contamination

[Skunk City]

From NJ.com and also in The Record today...

"Federal officials Wednesday warned people not to come in contact with the water or eat any fish or shellfish from Newark Bay and the lower Passaic and Hackensack rivers because contamination levels remain dangerously high after Hurricane Sandy crippled a key sewage treatment plant.

The Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission’s main treatment facility in Newark, which serves 1.4 million customers in Bergen, Passaic and three other counties, has been dumping roughly 240 million gallons of raw or partially treated sewage per day into Newark Bay and Upper New York Bay since Sandy struck.

“It’s still very bad. It’s not advisable to come in contact with the water or consume any crabs, shellfish or fish,” said Debbie Mans of NY/NJ Baykeeper. “And without a clear timeline when full secondary treatment will be restored, we’re going to see numbers like this for a while.”

From the time the facility was knocked out during the storm until Nov. 7, it discharged up to 500 million gallons a day of raw sewage, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Partial treatment was restored Nov. 7, but secondary treatment is required to bring coliform counts down to acceptable levels. The facility is still only able to conduct primary treatment of sewage, and has yet to restore its ability to treat sludge, said Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Mans estimated that the facility has dumped close to 4 billion gallons of raw or partially treated sewage since Sandy hit. The storm knocked out power to the facility, flooded tunnels and damaged key equipment.

The restoration of primary treatment and the addition of chlorine to the effluent has helped lower the amount of fecal coliform in the bay waters. But coliform levels remain well above acceptable standards, according to testing conducted this week by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Fecal coliform is a common group of bacteria associated with human waste.

The maximum acceptable levels on coliform for shellfish harvesting in Newark Bay and the lower Passaic and Hackensack is 14 colony forming units per 100 milliliters of water. But as of Tuesday, the numbers still ranged as high as 51 in Middle Newark Bay and 280 where the Passaic River enters the bay.

But there has been improvement: A week after Sandy, counts had been as high as 1,500 in the lower Passaic and 930 in Middle Newark Bay.

The EPA also tested at the commission’s main outfall pipe east of Bayonne in Upper New York Bay, which measured 430 Tuesday. A backup outfall in Newark measured 67.

“EPA strongly advises that people avoid activities that could bring them in direct contact with the waters in Newark Bay and New York Harbor,” the agency said Wednesday.

Newark Bay and the lower Passaic and Hackensack had been off limits to shellfishing and fishing even before Sandy hit, since high levels of toxic dioxins in sediment gets swept up and down the lower portions of the rivers, which are tidal. But that doesn’t always stop people from fishing there.

Bill Sheehan, the Hackensack Riverkeeper, said Wednesday that he saw people fishing this week on the Hackensack at Laurel Hill Park in Secaucus, and at least one person had cleaned a caught fish as if to consume it.

“Stripers are running right now, so people continue to fish, but we advise against it,” said Mans.

Sheehan said that right now it isn’t a good idea even to kayak in the affected water bodies.

The DEP last week urged residents and businesses served by the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission to conserve water and flush sparingly to reduce the flow of partially treated sewage into the bay.

The commission runs the fifth largest sewage treatment system in the country, and serves several dozen Bergen and Passaic towns, mostly those bordering both banks of the Passaic River. It also serves the state’s three largest cities – Newark, Jersey City and Paterson."