City must pay $13K fine for failures of TWW

TRENTON » Former Mayor Eric Jackson is long gone, off making six figures at his new gig as utilities director back home in Plainfield, but the city of Trenton is still paying for the failures of Trenton Water Works under his administration.

Following a meeting with DEP officials on Thursday, Mayor Reed Gusciora signed an updated 18-page agreement with A. Raimund Belonzi, the bureau chief for compliance and enforcement for the state Department of Environmental Protection, resolving violations brought against the city under Jackson’s administration.

The Administrative Consent Order requires the city to pay a staggering $13,000 to the state treasurer by Aug, 1 for failures to provide documents required about lead service line replacement.

The order makes clear the city is withdrawing the right “with prejudice” to fight the fine in court by signing the agreement, according to the terms outlined in the updated ACO obtained by The Trentonian.

The city in June requested a hearing before an administrative law judge to contest the DEP fine issued May 9, but Gusciora felt he had little choice but to sign off on the ACO, fearing estimated legal costs to challenge the DEP would exceed the amount owed to the state to resolve the fines.

“I think it’s unfair that it was presented to the Gusciora administration,” the mayor said. “I’ll send it to [Jackson] to see if he pays it. It didn’t occur under my watch.”

The mayor’s decision to sign the ACO comes roughly a week after he attended a meeting set up by ex-Mayor Doug Palmer to discuss solutions with water quality officials and speak by conference call with the mayor of Flint, Michigan, the epicenter of the one of the nation’s worst water crises, on how to tackle Trenton’s water issues.

Gusciora felt paying the bill was a way to help restore the relationship with the DEP that became strained during a tit-for-tat between Jackson and former commissioner Bob Martin.

Both of them exchanged salvos in stinging letters outlining the DEP’s concerns that Trenton Water Works was putting at risk the health of 225,000 people who use and consume the water through its distribution system.

The city was previously under an ACO signed by Jackson in February that outlined certain goals that needed to be met just days before he was set to leave office. Talk of paying the huge fine wasn’t mentioned in the prior ACO. But that changed when the DEP in May hit the city with an Administrative Order and Notice of Civil Administrative Penalty Assessment (AONOCAPA) based upon a running demand for the city to submit a list of lead service lines (LSLs) along with an expected replacement schedule. The city had previously received a noncompliance notice over the issue in January with a deadline date of Feb. 15 for the materials.

The subsequent penalty notice also required the city to provide a water source treatment recommendation within 15 days and assessed the $13,000 fine.

The city didn’t provide the LSL list until July 13, according to the ACO.

While the DEP stated the ACO “supersedes” the previous AONOCAPA, it doesn’t absolve the city of “liability or receiving additional enforcement actions for violating the June 30, 2018 deadline for the LSL replacement or preclude TWW from any regulatory obligations associated with future violations, deficiencies or NONCs.”

In many respects, the ACO read like a comprehensive list of the city’s water failures over the years: unacceptable lead levels, failure to submit water quality samples and corrosion control recommendations, a constant inability to meet deadlines outlined by the DEP for replacing lead services lines in the water distribution system along with other mess-ups.

The city started replacing LSLs in mid-June, the ACO stated, but didn’t meet the June 30 deadline to replace 7 percent of them as required for exceeding acceptable lead levels that have been a recurring problem for TWW.

Earlier this month, the city was cited again for the same problem when DEP evaluated test results of water samples collected during the first half of 2018 and found more than 10 percent of TWW’s samples had elevated lead levels exceeding 15 parts per billion.

Lead is a naturally occurring element and toxic substance that can be particularly harmful to the health of children, for high exposure to lead could stunt a child’s growth and lead to a lower intelligence quotient or IQ, according to the EPA.

Officials believe the elevated lead levels are the result of lead leaching into the water from customers’ service lines or internal plumbing fixtures.

Gusciora said the ACO requires the city to replace roughly 2,400 service lines with unleaded pipes within two years to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Lead and Copper Rule, with the ultimate goal of replacing service lines at 14,000 households.

The city must offer to replace impacted home owners service lines at the home owners’ expense for between $2,000 and $5,000.

The service line replacement project is expected to cost at least $10 million, Gusciora said, but he hopes to mitigate that hit on the city through environmental grants. The city must have a contract in place with a company as part of a final LSL replacement plan by next April.

Gusciora stressed this is the price of having a functional, city-owned water utility.

The city has already pumped millions of dollars into outside contracts with engineering firms brought into help stabilize the dysfunctional water department.

Gusciora brought in Dr. Shing-Fu Hsueh, a former DEP water quality official, to lead the water utility on an interim basis while he finds a permanent replacement.

The mayor hopes restructuring public works to make the water utility its own department will help prioritize its issues.

And the issues have been plentiful, as outlined by the ACO, which holds the city responsible for meeting a host of expected goals regarding corrosion control, lead service line replacement, water monitoring and treatment and public education.

The city must also provide the DEP with monthly progress reports until all provisions of the ACO are met. The city could be fined or otherwise held responsible if it doesn’t comply with the terms.

The agreement spells out a clause that lets the city off if it can’t meet parts of the ACO because of something that is beyond its control, according to the ACO. However, in such a case, the city must notify DEP within seven days of the circumstances and what it plans to do to address them.