COMBINED SEWER SYSTEMS
Addressing an Alphabet Soup of Outdated Infrastructure
Cities across America face cascading problems because they deferred maintenance on and failed to modernize critical water infrastructure. Consequently, New Jersey discharges 23 billion gallons of untreated sewage from combined sewers into the state’s rivers, presenting an environmental and public health disaster. Combined sewers are the region’s primary source of the pathogenic pollution that makes area waters unsafe for swimming; stormwater from all sources is the primary cause of nutrient pollution that limits biodiversity and makes some waters seasonally unfit for aquatic life; stormwater is the greatest contributor of plastics to the ocean.
CWAC is fully poised to address Combined Sewer Systems (CSSs), and their associated alphabet soup of related regulatory programs. CWAC's attorney helped bring the lawsuit that lead New Jersey to issue new CSS permits that finally began the current process that will bring New Jersey CSS regulation into compliance with the Clean Water Act.
Getting this process right will lead to a vastly improved future for the state. Achieving water quality standards benefits economically disadvantaged communities and is an important environmental justice issue.