WOODLAND PARK, N.J. (AP) - When an alarming chemical odor was detected near a drinking water intake pipe on the Passaic River a few years ago, the water utility considered shutting down the intake, which provides drinking water to hundreds of thousands.
John Zuzeck sprang into action.
Zuzeck put a small aluminum boat into the river, just upstream of the Passaic Valley Water Commission’s intake at Little Falls. Then he sniffed and sleuthed his way upstream for miles - tracking the source of the chemical to a Livingston sewage treatment plant.
Clearly some company had been dumping a chemical into their sewer line that the treatment plant didn’t know about - and wasn’t equipped to handle.
Zuzeck, an environmental specialist with the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Water Compliance and Enforcement Division, scoured office parks and manufacturing sites. Although he couldn’t pinpoint a culprit, he had a strong suspicion, and because of his visible sleuthing, the chemical stopped flowing into the treatment plant.
“Had we not had that boat that enabled us to track the chemical up the river, we may never have been able to find the source,” he told The Record (https://njersy.co/2lD0r63).
In fact, until recently, Zuzeck’s bureau, despite being responsible for waterways through the northern part of the state, didn’t have its own boat. When it needed one, it had to borrow from another agency - at that agency’s convenience.
But over the past few years, Zuzeck and Richard Paull, chief of the DEP Water Enforcement’s northern bureau, have cobbled together a small fleet of hand-me-down boats from other agencies. They can now conduct routine patrols up the Hackensack and Passaic rivers, in local lakes, and along the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, for signs of environmental trouble.
“It’s important because people deserve clean water and to have their natural resources protected,” Paull said. “We’re their eyes and ears.”
Just last week, Zuzeck and Paull piloted a 24-foot boat - a hand-me-down from the state police - along the Hudson from the Statue of Liberty up past the George Washington Bridge to the Englewood Boat Basin, checking outfall pipes for leaking raw sewage.
Many towns have one set of pipes to take sewage from homes and businesses to sewage treatment plants, and a separate line for storm water runoff from streets. But some cities with older sewage systems - including several along the Hudson - still have combined systems that handle both the raw sewage and storm water. After heavy rains, these systems can’t handle the extra volume, and excess raw sewage gets released from the system through combined sewer outfall pipes, or CSOs, directly into the Hudson and other waterways.
More than 23 billion gallons of raw sewage and other pollutants pour into New Jersey’s rivers and bays each year from 217 outfall pipes operated by these cities, including Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, Hackensack, Fort Lee, Ridgefield Park and Paterson.
On this day, Zuzeck guided the DEP boat through the lower Hudson’s churning, 35-degree water to one of those CSOs, near the Goldman Sachs building on the Jersey City waterfront.
It was sunny, so nothing should have been pouring out of the CSO. If there was, it would have indicated the sewer system had a blockage that needed to be addressed, or even a collapsed line.
Today, Paull could tell all was well. “This is just what I want to see,” he said. “Nothing.”
As they moved up the river to check out more CSO openings, Zuzeck kept two blue strobe lights blinking on the boat’s roof, and kept a sharp eye out for other craft, including New York Waterway ferries darting across the river and giant barges being pushed along by powerful tug boats. In the summer, it’s even more hectic, with kayakers, jet skis and sailboats joining the mix.
Paull said that during one recent Fourth of July weekend, when it was raining and visibility was poor, Zuzeck came upon a drunk boater lost and unable to find his way back to his slip. Zuzeck helped bring him back in safely.
Even on sunny days, high tide can pose particular dangers for the DEP’s small craft. High tide hides the remnants of old, abandoned piers and their pilings, which jut out from the shore in Hoboken and Weehawken - rotting, ghostlike ruins from the harbor’s past.
On this day, Zuzeck eased the boat to another CSO near the Hoboken train terminal. There was no raw sewage, but a collection of styrofoam coffee cups, plastic bottles and pieces of wood bobbed in the water, keeping company with a few unperturbed ducks.
When the DEP crew pulled alongside a large skimmer boat operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Paull shouted across the water about a large floating log the skimmer might be able to gobble up.
A little later, near the Edgewater Marina, Zuzeck idled the DEP boat so Paull could reach into the river with a metal pole and grab a black balloon that floated on the surface.
The Mylar balloon, emblazoned with a large “21,” had apparently helped celebrate a milestone birthday. “Happy birthday to someone,” Paull said. “But this doesn’t belong in our waterway.”
The men said they routinely pull items from the Hudson that could pose a risk to fish or other animals. “We’ve even come across full garbage bags floating by that were filled with half-empty paint cans and aerosol cans,” Zuzeck said.
A few years ago, they saw what appeared to be a seagull standing on the water. When they got closer they realized it was standing on the submerged carcass of a dolphin. The dolphin, they discovered, had choked on a plastic bottle. “The importance of keeping the waterways clean really resonated with me when we came across that dolphin,” Paull said. “Such a magnificent animal.”
As the DEP boat nosed up to another CSO near the North Hudson Yacht Club in Edgewater, it slid past tall dock pilings topped with plastic pink flamingos that looked as though they were flying above the Manhattan skyscrapers in the distance.
When Superstorm Sandy hit, the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission’s treatment plant in Newark, which handles sewage from 1.5 million area residents, was knocked out of commission. Raw sewage backed up in the lines. Over the next three weeks, as the facility was brought back into service, an estimated 4.4 billion gallons of partially treated sewage entered New York Harbor through the agency’s outfall pipe, which lies on the harbor floor near the Robbins Reef Lighthouse, just south of the Statue of Liberty.
In the days after the storm, Zuzeck had to go out to the area around the outfall pipe to take water samples. “There was this huge area where the water was discolored and it smelled just horrible,” Zuzeck said. “But making that decision to let the raw sewage go instead of having it back up the system saved many people’s homes.”
Zuzeck, who lives in Woodcliff Lake, grew up in Ridgefield Park and majored in environmental studies at Montclair State University. His father, an electrical engineer and former coal miner, died from cancer, giving Zuzeck an appreciation for the potential health impacts of pollution.
His father used to take him trout fishing on the Saddle River and in Barnegat Bay. “It helps teach you at a young age a respectful approach to natural resources and makes you want to contribute to protecting it,” he said.
Paull, a Metuchen native, recalls going seining with an uncle of his in Barnegat Bay, amazed at the pipefish and seahorses that appeared in their nets. He studied biology and fisheries science at Rutgers University.
On their trips along North Jersey’s rivers and bays, the two DEP officials also check for debris dumped on the riverbanks, for old chemical drums abandoned at the water’s edge and for bulkheads and piers under construction. “We make sure the companies doing the work have the proper licenses and permits,” Paull said. “A lot are fine but a number we have found to be fly-by-night operators.”
They also help other DEP bureaus with their work, especially checking for things that might be hard to see from land, such as whether waterside landfills have proper caps in place and if winter salt piles for roadways are properly covered. They have brought DEP attorneys out on the water to help them research their cases, as well as DEP permit writers so they can better understand the context for certain permits.
“Because of these hand-me-down boats,” Paull said, “we’re able to check on environmental issues along the water that we had never been able to see before.
“Imagine the water becoming too polluted around the Statue of Liberty for tourists to visit,” he said. Then he smiled, and adjusted his sunglasses
___
Information from: The Record (Woodland Park, N.J.), https://www.northjersey.com
Please read our comment policy before commenting.