Date: Tuesday, February 14th
Chloride Monitoring Projects in NJ Waters
by Debbie Kratzer and Elaine Panuccio
Debbie Kratzer, Environmental Specialist, NJDEP Division of Water Monitoring, Standards, Bureau of Environmental Analysis, Restoration and Standards
Long-term water quality monitoring data show a trend of increasing chloride and total dissolved solids (TDS) concentrations in New Jersey’s surface waters. This trend of increasing salinization of freshwater has been observed globally, as a result of urban and agricultural runoff, discharges from wastewater treatment facilities and septic systems, and from salt used to control ice on roadways. This presentation will review the data from NJDEP and the NJ Watershed Watch Network community water monitoring program. It will also provide an overview of what NJ and other states are doing to address freshwater salinization.
Elaine Panuccio, Water Resource Scientist, Delaware River Basin Commission
The Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC), a federal interstate government agency, was founded in 1961 when President Kennedy and the governors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Delaware signed the Delaware River Basin Compact into law to manage the shared river system without regard to political boundaries in order to address severe pollution, flooding, and water supply issues.
DRBC’s Special Protection Waters (SPW) program is designed to prevent degradation of the exceptional water quality in the non-tidal portion of the Delaware River by defining existing water quality and establishing permit limits for new or expanding discharges to ensure that existing water quality is maintained. In this presentation, DRBC Water Resource Scientist Elaine Panuccio will provide an overview of the ongoing Non-tidal Chloride Monitoring Project that started in early 2021. A 2016 assessment of the effectiveness of the SPW program indicated that while existing water quality was maintained for most water quality parameters, concentrations of chloride and conductivity exhibited measurable increases in DRBC’s Lower Delaware reach (between Portland, PA and Trenton, NJ). Elaine will share background information about what prompted the monitoring, will provide current project status, and will describe the intended goals and outcomes of the study, including track-down and regulatory efforts.
This talk is eligible for 1 AICP CM self-reporting credit
