BLOOMFIELD, NJ -- Over the past few years, New Jersey residents have learned a lot more about issues affecting water quality, as the entire state has dealt with concerns about aging infrastructure in water providers affecting the safety of drinking water. Now Bloomfield residents are receiving good news across the board, as the Bloomfield Department of Water and Engineering today announced the Township’s water source is moving towards 100% compliance with state and federal guidelines. Full compliance is anticipated by June or July of this year.
In the most recent test taken late last year, over 90% of the 65 faucets sampled had less than 12 parts per billion of lead. The EPA standard for lead content is 15 ppb. Additionally, traces of disinfectant byproducts were well within acceptable limits established by the state Department of Environmental Protection and Environmental Protection Agency.
The Township of Bloomfield has long received its water from Newark’s Pequannock treatment plant. Since 2017, the Township has been testing water at its three interconnection stations monthly, as well as testing water at established sampling points for disinfection byproducts.
Though water source samples must only be taken every fiscal quarter, Bloomfield officials have taken samples every month for well over a year, and found results have consistently improved, as measures taken by the Newark plant have resulted in significant decreases of disinfection byproducts such as Haloacetic Acids or HAA5. Continued improvements to the Township’s water piping system, such as water main cleaning and lining projects and elimination of dead ends have insured the drinking water remains at compliant levels through-out the system. In the fourth quarter of 2019, disinfectant byproducts were well below the maximum levels established by the EPA.
“We’ve all had to learn a lot of technical terms about water over the past few years, and some of it is definitely hard to grasp, but I’m proud to say that we’ve always been ahead of the curve in making infrastructure investments, which are already improving our water quality,” said Mayor Michael Venezia. “We’ve invested over $10M in water infrastructure improvements over the past four years, from water main repairs to replacing hundreds of service lines that feed directly into residents’ homes. These new results prove that our investments were wise and are improving public health, which is a relief to me as a resident and father.”
