Letter: State's Strategic Plan Leaves Water Resources Vulnerable

The Monmouth County League of Women Voters is a longtime advocate for protecting the water drinking supply in the local area. Recently they submitted a comment on the NJ State and Redevelopment Plan, which former mayor Carole Balmer distributed to Holmdel Township officials. It is reprinted here.

To: Director of the Office of Planning Advocacy, Dept. of State.

The Monmouth County League has a long history of supporting the state planning process, the current State Plan, and our Swimming River Reservoir.  Our concerns for protection of the Reservoir go back more than 30 years.  This State ‘Strategic’ Plan does nothing to protect our most critical resource: our water supply. 

This plan removes the safeguards provided by the Mapping of Planning Areas 4 and 5 in our current plan.  These help protect water supplies and watersheds critical to the recharge of groundwater and the provision of base flow for streams feeding our reservoir.    Without adequate base flow, our reservoir simply becomes a man-made retention basin collecting excessive runoff loaded with non-point source pollution.  Additional silt is carried along from upstream development and stream bank scouring.

This Plan focuses only on economic growth-- to the detriment of protecting the critical resources that must be preserved if our state wants growth that is sustainable.  These resources are our agricultural soils, open space, watersheds, reservoirs and streams, and historic sites.  Without a clean and abundant water supply, the quality of life in New Jersey will invariably be eroded. We will not draw to the state the sorts of industries and research facilities that would best serve our population.   We are already the most densely populated state in the nation with a population denser than that of India or Japan.

The areas designated as “limited growth” in this plan are absolutely the most important ones to protect if we want to build any sort of a sustainable future.  Water is life!  Any realistic plan would provide a way to protect our water supply and keep it safe and abundant.

DEP designated Monmouth County as Critical Water Supply Area # 1 in the state in 1986, and our area was declared a ‘sole source’ aquifer system by the USGS.  Our businesses and residents depend on a safe and adequate potable water supply, and this is currently threatened by inadequate ground water recharge to streams.  In 1990, when the Manasquan Reservoir came on line to serve southern Monmouth and northern Ocean County,  all our water purveyors’ allocations from deep wells were cut by 50%, in hopes the aquifers could recharge over time.  

Salt water intrusion was so severe that towns had to move their wells inland. The USGS data in 1983 showed that water levels in all four aquifers underlying our Critical Water Supply Area #1 were below sea level – by up to 200 feet.  USGS estimated that, even if the pumping from them were reduced by 50% after 1990, water levels would still be below sea level in 2010.  Our designation has been recently reevaluated; our status as Critical Water Supply Area #1 remains.  Under current conditions two of the eight water purveyors serving our county are close to the upper water allocation limits that will ever be available to them from surface and groundwater combined.

The Swimming River Reservoir currently suffers from severe siltation, eutrophication, and lowered base flows, along with increased stormwater runoff—all threatening its health and the availability of its water supply.  It is an “in-line” reservoir and the streams empty into it directly.

This ‘Strategic’ Plan offers no protection to our water resources. Indications are that current protections will be rolled back. This is stunningly shortsighted.  This reservoir, and all the streams feeding it which need protection, are classified as Category #1 Water Bodies because they have been found to need additional protection.

This Strategic Plan is a recipe for the degradation of our resources. Combined with the extension of  Wastewater Management Plan Adoption, the removal of 50% of the protection accorded Category 1 Water Bodies in the past, failure to tie into a functional Water Supply Master Plan for the state, and a waiver rule which could easily be manipulated to further remove protections, we face a threat to our very existence.  Without safe and adequate water it is impossible to have a sustainable and healthy environment.

Monmouth County also has a rich agricultural heritage and a vibrant tourist economy.  Both of these put extra demands on our water supply during months when it is most vulnerable.    How exactly is this Plan supposed to protect our economy if we can’t protect our water?  How exactly can we say this is a “Strategic” Plan for sustainable growth when it is in total denial of the resources needed for sustainable growth?  Provisions for protecting well-head areas, groundwater levels, and aquifer and recharge areas, as well as protections for stream corridors and critical watersheds, are essential.  

This is not just a Monmouth County issue.  Our whole state is dealing with water supply problems, in one form or another. This plan totally fails to consider how critical this need is. It fails to acknowledge the need for mapping to help guide local government in this matter. This is a critical function and responsibility of state government and must be added to the plan!  We cannot rely on local government to protect a critical regional resource.   Local governments change according to local politics, personalities, and passing local political issues.  Consistent and continuous protection of our most critical needs (water and air) are always going to depend on levels of government beyond municipalities.  

Water is life.  The cleaner and more abundant the water, the better the quality of life and health of residents.   This plan reads like an economic wish list, but without any road map for how to get there.  It makes much of the fact that it is aiming for ‘sustainable’ growth.  However, in order for a plan to work, it must be firmly grounded in reality.  Growth of ANY kind is unsustainable if, in the end, there is not a safe and adequate water supply.  A new plan, with mapping, is needed, and it must provide protections for our most critical resources.

Marie Curtis, Co-President
Louise Usechak, Co-President and Natural Resources Chairman

Monmouth County League of Women Voters

The comment period ended April 2. Read more about the plan at the NJ DEP's website.