In the mid-1990s, members of the town’s Office of Emergency Management spread out through the town to snoop into catch basins and follow water drainage ditches to help map out what route rainwater takes after a storm.
In performing the apparently thankless task that kept these volunteers busy most weekends covering several months, the OEM hoped to develop a map that would help them and the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission control flooding. Part of this was intended to help the NJMC develop a hydraulic model that would help simulate through computers the variety of floods impacting the Meadowlands.
For Secaucus officials, the search for storm water sewers provided necessary information that would eventually help them implement plans to address flooding throughout the town. By knowing where the water goes and how it reaches the Hackensack River and the various creeks that surround town, Secaucus officials would be able to better plan future installations of pumps, tide gates and dikes. The town also discovered the data extremely valuable in its campaign to reduce breeding mosquitoes and the possible spread of the West Nile Virus.
Last week, Secaucus found itself ahead of most other municipalities around the state as the governor’s office announced the need for towns to take steps to reduce runoff pollution into the rivers.
This results from a 1997 federal mandate that said the state would have to take steps to control runoff oil and gasoline from parking lots, debris from the streets, and various pollutants from fertilizers from lawns and gardens.
“On some of this, we are ahead of most of the state because of the work we did through the OEM,” Mayor Dennis Elwell said. “We went out and mapped every storm water drain and traced the routes the water took.”
In Secaucus, all storm water flows into the Hackensack or into Pehnhorn Creek, Cromakill Creek or Mill Creek.
On Nov. 23, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced at the annual League of Municipalities Convention in Atlantic City that the new rules would soon be implemented to meet the federal clean water standards.
“In New Jersey, we like to think we’re way ahead on environmental issues,” said Riverkeeper Bill Sheehan. “But in storm water management we’re way behind. The state has to enforce the laws now because it faces a suit from the federal government.”
Sheehan said the state was supposed to have complied years ago.
“But every time the state Department of Environmental Protection tried to do it, the League of Municipalities cried poverty and got the state to defer implementing the new regulations. Finally, this year, the bill came due.”
New rules are very strict
Under the new rules – which could begin as soon as a year from now – municipalities will have to adopt litter abatement programs. The programs must include regular street sweeping and establishing of waste disposal ordinances.
Sheehan said while Secaucus has an active street sweeping program that removes a lot of everyday debris from the roads, many other communities did away with the service to cut budgets. Under the new regulations, these programs must be reinstated.
Towns will also have to install new grates with smaller screens on existing storm water drains. This would keep larger pieces of trash from flowing into local waterways.
“This means that we’re going to have to prevent large objects from getting into the storm water sewers,” Elwell said. “We may have to create collection points – filters that which we will check from time to time to catch bottles and wood.”
“By installing traps of storm drains town can keep millions of tons of trash out of the waterways and can have an aesthetic and beneficial effect on the area’s waterways,” Sheehan said.
One requirements that could have the highest cost for municipalities will involve treatment of storm water for the first time.
“Some of these changes are going to be very costly,” said Elwell. “The state told us that we have to control ‘non point source pollution.’ That means all the oil that drips out of cars, the gas that spills from pumps, or the insecticide used on people’s lawns must be kept from polluting local rivers.”
Already poor
Water quality in Hudson County rivers is considered poor already from naturally occurring minerals and previously operating plants that dumped chemicals into the rivers and streams, according to Hudson County’s Master Plan.
“Localized salt water intrusion has degraded ground water quality with chloride concentrations,” the plan says, adding that improvements to sewerage treatment plants have greatly increased water quality in these rivers.
Although not slated for anytime soon, the new regulations could also mean that towns will be required to set up treatment plants for storm water the way most towns have for sanitary waste.
“This means we would have to run the storm water through a treatment plant of some sort before we could release the water into a stream or river,” he said.
The state Department of Environmental Protection has put the cost for most of the changes on the backs of local taxpayers, forcing municipalities to come up with ways to pay for what might be massive changes.
“We’re looking at grants for these projects,” Elwell said, although did not paint the situation as “doom and gloom.”
“This is a massive public works project,” he said. “During times when the economy is not doing well, these projects can provide people with jobs and help the overall economy.”
In the past, most municipalities created two sewerage systems, one that handles storm water, the other handles sanitary waste. Storm water drains usually flowed into area waterways, while sanitary sewers took waste to a treatment plant for filtering and cleaning. By having two systems, taxpayers were not hit with the additional cost of water treatment each time it rained. Some cities in Hudson County – such as North Bergen, Hoboken and Jersey City – which combines storm water and sanitary sewerage – could benefit from the new law.
By creating temporary holding tanks for the flood water, these municipalities can catch and hold the flood water to treat during off peak hours.