Campaign Kicks Off To End Raw Sewage Dumping Into Hackensack

Hackensack Riverkeeper® To Educate On Effects Of Combined Sewer Overflows

 

On Christmas Eve, 2003, Captain Bill Sheehan, executive director of Hackensack Riverkeeper®, stood in the pouring rain on River Street in Hackensack watching raw sewage – contents of toilets only minutes before – bubble up from storm drains and float down the road toward the Hackensack River. Such scenes occur after heavy rains in at least four towns in the Hackensack River watershed. That’s because the towns of Hackensack, Jersey City, North Bergen and Ridgefield Park operate Combined Sewer Systems, with 29 Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) where storm sewer and sanitary sewer flows mix during storm events. Through these CSOs, raw sewage pours untreated into the Hackensack River, a natural resource otherwise on the rebound.

Thanks to the Clean Water Act, the fish are back in the recovering river, as are a host of birds and mammals. The people are coming back too–in canoes, kayaks, motorboats and personal watercraft. On most days, the Hackensack River is clean enough to swim in, according to the standards  and goals set by the Clean Water Act. Not so, however, after heavy rains.

For a day or two after heavy rains, the river is a dumping ground for untreated human and industrial waste, toxic materials, pollutants, pathogenic microorganisms, viruses, cysts, chemicals and debris.  Ingestion of water or shellfish from water with CSO discharges, or even dermal contact with this water, can cause serious health risks. The economic costs, too, are staggering. Nationally, the annual cost of beach closures and recreational fishing advisories due to combined sewer overflows has been estimated as high as $170 million and commercial fishing losses up to $17 million (US EPA, Economic Analysis, October 2000.) Medical costs associated with swimming in CSO-contaminated waters range from $591 million to $4.1 billion per year. Medical costs associated with eating shellfish harvested from CSO-contaminated waters range from $2.5 million to $22 million per year.

While smart growth initiatives steer development and redevelopment to New Jersey’s cities and town centers, there must be investment in the infrastructures that will support new residences, businesses and industries. Yet in the Hackensack River watershed, antiquated sewage systems are not being addressed. The result is raw sewage being dumped directly in the Hackensack River.

Adequately addressing the CSO issue on the river will take many years and many millions of dollars from federal, state and local sources.  Hackensack Riverkeeper’s goal is to take the CSO issue from “under the radar” and put it “on the table”–getting stake-holders to recognize the problem so the human communities and living resources of the Hackensack River watershed can fully utilize the recreational and habitat potential of these public resources.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Educational Foundation of America, Hackensack Riverkeeper is implementing an Education Campaign to Eliminate CSOs on the Hackensack River. Through this project, Hackensack Riverkeeper will raise awareness among policy-makers and the public regarding the immediate need to upgrade our archaic sewage infrastructures through sewage separation initiatives, to support the state’s growth management plan. “Just as we did with our successful campaign (1997-2003) to ‘save not pave’ the last 8,400 acres of undeveloped wetlands in the New Jersey Meadowlands, we will raise these CSO initiatives to priority status among public officials,” said Captain Bill.  “We will also identify potential funding sources for such systems.”

Hackensack Riverkeeper intends to employ its successful model of environmental activism used in our Education Campaign to preserve the Meadowlands wetlands. This model calls for a coordinated strategy of education and outreach targeting virtually every level of stake-holder-federal, state, county, municipal, businesses, healthcare organizations, community groups, schools, congregations, fishermen, boaters, paddlers, the public at large and the press.

 

Education and outreach with these stake-holders will be achieved through:

1) presentations and meetings;

2) tours of the river and site visits to the CSO points;

3) research of the issue-and possible solutions - in the Hackensack River watershed and publication of its findings;

4) placement of news articles on the issue on local TV news stations, daily and weekly newspapers and in newsletters published by environmental and community organizations;

5) building a coalition of stake-holders that can work on an ongoing basis to raise and maintain awareness of CSO issues.