Trenton Water Works hit with 2 more violations
TRENTON » The troubles continue to mount for Trenton Water Works.
The department was hit with two more violations this week, records show.
The state Department of Environmental Protection, which has constantly hounded the city to fix operational and staffing qualms at the water department, cited TWW on Monday for failing to properly chlorinate the water “due to rising turbidities.”
Turbidity is the cloudiness of water caused by particles and its measurement is considered the gold standard to monitoring H2O quality.
A second violation was for not complying with testing under the Lead and Copper Rule, which states that if more than 10 percent of samples have levels of 15 parts per billion the water agency must take steps to warn customers and take corrective action.
“Specifically, your system was required to monitor for pH and Alkalinity biweekly,” the violation said. “To date, we have not received ALL of your sample results.”
City spokesman Michael Walker refused to address the latest violations. He referred a reporter back to a statement about TWW issued four days before that accused the press of engaging in “highly charged rhetoric and misinformation.”
The statement was attributed to Mayor Eric Jackson, although questions arose about whether he actually authored it.
The violations continue to stack up for Jackson’s administration.
Since he assumed office in July 2014, the city has been hit with at 18 water violations from DEP, with 12 of them coming in 2017 — its worst year ever on record.
TWW’s problems forced City Council to get involved after DEP most recently slapped down the city for being slow to issue a boil-water advisory. That caused an angry firestorm of controversy with political leaders from around the area weighing in.
City Council President Zachary Chester also launched into a diatribe at last week’s meeting about former Gov. Chris Christie, accusing him of working with DEP to sabotage the Trenton Water Works so he could get his “people” in as part of an unsubstantiated state takeover plot.
“The mayor can’t say it. I’ll say it. It’s my belief that Governor Christie on his way out wanted the city of Trenton to hire his people, the company he wants to pay off on his way out, to give a contract [to],” the council president said. “That’s what I believe. And I said it. And I’ll say it again, because it’s the truth.”
City Council voted in favor of writing a letter, obtained The Trentonian, down, and it literally takes almost a minute just to clear. It’s an issue. It’s never been like that as long as I’ve lived here. It’s a concern. I think we should put it into a motion just so as you say, Councilwoman, that we just cover ourselves just to make sure we’ve at least tried to do something.”
The panel also discussed a Zaptruder-style video allegedly depicting the inside of the city’s water filtration plant.
Residents sounded the alarms over the video, which was posted online and later taken down.
Councilman George Muschal said whoever shot the video should be fired and criminally prosecuted.
“This is criminal,” he said. “We have an infrastructure that is out to the public. … What’s going on in there is going to stop or someone’s going to jail.”
Trentonian staff writer David Foster contributed to this report