According to New Jersey state officials, 34 drinking water systems that serve a combined 500,000 residents exceeded new standards last year for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
The largest water provider that exceeded the standard was the Middlesex Water Company, which serves 233,000 people, reported The Bergen Record.
State officials are creating a statewide cleanup plan and these plans hinge on lawsuits filed by the Murphy administration against DuPont, 3M and other companies that used PFAS chemicals for decades.
"The folks that put this material into the chain of commerce are responsible," said Shawn LaTourette, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection in a conference call with reporters, reported The Bergen Record.
The data can be found at the DEP's Water Watch database.
New Jersey formally adopted some of the most stringent drinking water standards in the nation for PFOA and PFOS in 2020.
Water systems across New Jersey showed that they exceeded the new standard for PFAS during annual testing in 2021. Most of these exceedances were in smaller, well-based systems. Since this discovery, notices have gone out to residents.
Many of the 34 community water systems are very small and serve only a few hundred people. 19 of these systems serve at least one town or even several, reported The Bergen Record.
According to Garfield, New Jersey, officials it would cost the city $2 million for new filtering equipment to deal with the PFAS levels. Additionally, voters in Allendale approved the sale of their municipal water system to Suez, reported The Bergen Record.
Suez spent almost $5 million through 2021 on PFAS treatment systems at its smaller drinking water systems. Suez plans to spend another $25 million into 2023 to complete filtration projects in Highlands communities, Franklin Lakes and eventually Allendale.
