Water Quality

The head of the regional office for the Environmental Protection Agency has asked the New Jersey Legislature not to delay implementation of 2008 water-quality rules that would limit the installation of septic systems and sewer-line expansions. Judith Enck, the regional administrator, whose agency has awarded $1.6 million to New Jersey to create the new water management plans, sent letters Tuesday to Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. (D., Camden) and Senate President Richard J. Codey (D., Essex)

New Jersey environmental groups' celebration over new protections for water quality has turned to outrage as the Legislature considers a bill to delay new rules until 2012 or beyond. The state was working to put in place a comprehensive plan to protect water quality and regulate development in sensitive areas of watersheds - 15 years after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered it to do so. But a proposal introduced this month in the Legislature, one that environmental groups say plays to developers, could postpone that plan by at least two more years and possibly thwart it altogether.

Much of Camden's water supply cannot be accounted for by the company that runs the system, a state audit has found. The company also has collected millions in unapproved tax dollars and failed to protect the water from contamination, the state comptroller said. The loss of 45 percent of the supply provided by Camden's largest water operator - due to leakage, overflow, meter inaccuracies, and billing errors - is more typical of systems in developing nations, according to the audit released yesterday by the independent Office of the State Comptroller.

There's a saying that lifelong Jersey Shore surfer Jon Weber uses about the state's testing of coastal waters: "It's safe to go swimming in New Jersey on Wednesdays. " For those who have been known to stretch a weekend at the Shore into Monday and Tuesday and lived to tell about it, the phrase may sound overly alarmist. But Weber's logic is based on the state's two-day testing process, during which beaches can remain open until Wednesday afternoon before being closed down for having dirty test results on Monday and Tuesday.

Suspicions of illegal dumping, and the widespread concern that follows, can really skew environmental statistics. New Jersey's 260 ocean and bay beaches were closed 208 times last summer, a 46 percent increase over the previous year. But more than half of the closures were attributed to medical waste - some of it deliberately dumped off shore, according to investigators, and discovered on Cape May County beaches. The summer of 2008 "was a fluke," said Virginia Loftin, a research scientist with the state Department of Environmental Protection.

While a little boy lets the tap run in a bathroom sink, his older sister watches in horror as the water seems to drain from an aquarium containing her pet fish. Fortunately for the fish, the girl turns off the tap just in time in this short film aptly titled "Carpa Diem," one of several documentaries featured at the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival being hosted by the Stroud Water Research Center in Avondale on Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m. Locally sponsored by Trail Creek Outfitters and several other area businesses, the festival will spotlight a variety of award-winning short films by independent filmmakers who are passionate about conserving natural resources.

As mallards swam on the far edge of the pond and horses grazed in a nearby field, a group of middle school students scrambled down to the pond to test the water quality. Darryl Smack, a student at Drexel Hill Middle School, stuck a thermometer into the water as other students collected samples in test tubes. Huddled together, they soon were evaluating the pond's pH, or level of acidity, and checking the level of nitrates and phosphates, possibly from fertilizers. The outdoor experiments are part of a watershed awareness program offered by the Pennsylvania Resources Council, the state's oldest nonprofit environmental education organization, which makes its home at Ridley Creek State Park in Edgmont.

The Bucks County government repeatedly violated environmental standards last year for sewage it sent to the county water and sewer authority's treatment plant behind the King's Plaza Shopping Center in Doylestown Township, the authority says. The county tested the sewage nine times last year and found it violated standards for total suspended solids (TSS) four times and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) six times, according to the Bucks County Water and Sewer Authority. Patrick Cleary, the authority's communications manager, said the violations had not resulted in any damage to water quality in the Neshaminy Creek, which receives the sewer plant's output.

As a 29-year-old female who often runs alone in Fairmount Park, I find it outrageous that an April 30 rape was not made public because, according to the police Special Victims Unit, it would have limited impact and may jeopardize the investigation ("Two rapes in park linked," July 26). What about the impact of this information for female runners in the Philadelphia region? By not releasing that information, the police endangered the lives of women runners, with murdered rape victim Rebecca Park being a case in point.

Sponsors of a bill that would for the first time require major water-using industries to report their rate of consumption said yesterday that they hoped for quick passage before the legislative session ends next week. Although the measure has the blessing of the Schweiker administration and industry groups, potential dams lie ahead. Virtually every environmental group in the state has lined up against the bill, saying it will undermine the state's Clean Streams Law and that loopholes in the measure could allow industries to continue to operate unchecked, threatening water supplies and water quality.