How to Use NJDEP's Data Miner to See if There Has Been a Sewage Discharge

This is the third of a three-part blog about Combined Sewer Overflows.

Example: after a long downpour on 8/15/2013, you want to see if there was a bypass from a NJ CSO.

Three steps: find the Hotline (188-WARN-DEP) reports for the day of the suspected bypass; get the Program Interest ID from the Hotline report (in order to identify the site); then search for the site using the PI-ID. (I am hyperlinking the steps but also including a description in the event the links change.)

Steps 1 & 2: Finding the Hotline Report and Program Interest ID

Go to “Access the Incidents/Complaints Reports”. Choose either “Incidents by County Municipality and Date”, or “Incidents by County and Date” *. Use the list of municipalities with CSOs and their county at the end of this blog.* * You can also use the “Advanced Search” if you know the name of the facility (or a licensed person).

Click on your choice then fill in date and municipality (and county). When you arrive at the long list of incidents, use “Edit”, “Find on this page” in Windows Explorer and look for “sewage”. “Sewage” will be highlighted; it's faster than reading through everything.

On 8/15/13 you will eventually see this entry for Bayonne: “REPORTING 2 NET FAILURES AT LOCATION DUE TO EXCESSIVE RAIN. UNKNOWN AMOUNT OF SEWAGE AFFECTED THE HARBOR. REPAIRS HAVE BEEN COMPLETED.” It does not identify the facility where the discharge occurred, but it does provide a Program Interest ID of 47773.

Step 3: Identifying the Responsible Agency with the Program Interest ID

Click on the “Reports by Category” button at the top of the page, or re-launch Data Miner to get back to the initial search page. Scroll down to “Search for Regulated Sites by ID Number”.

Enter the Program Interest ID (in this example 47773) into the box on the left and keep the default “All” for which programs to search. Click on the green arrow. This identifies a CSO in Bayonne as the origin of the discharge.

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* If the link doesn't work, start from the beginning. Go to the NJDEP webpage, scroll down and click on the Data Miner Button on the left. When you get to this first Data Miner page, click on the “launch” button on the right. This takes you to the initial search page. There are four blue buttons along the top of the page; click on “Reports by Category”. From this page of links, click on the link “Incidents/Complaints” or just scroll down to the “Incidents/Complaints” section on this page, and click “Access the Incidents/Complaints Reports”. Choose either “Incidents by County Municipality and Date”, or “Incidents by County and Date”. Use the list of municipalities with CSOs and their county at the end of this blog.

** Municipalities with CSOs Listed by County and Number of CSOs.

Municipalities with CSOs discharging into the Hudson-Raritan Estuary are listed by county and the number of CSOs. In Hudson County, there are about 85: Bayonne (30); Jersey City (21); North Bergen Municipal Utilities Authority (NBMUA) (10); North Hudson Sewerage Authority (NHSA), Adams St. facility, Hoboken (8); Harrison Town (7); Kearny Town (5); NHSA West NY (2); Town of Guttenberg (1); and East Newark (1).

The other counties have about 95: Ridgefield Park (6), Fort Lee (2), and Hackensack City (2), all in Bergen County; Elizabeth City, Union County (28); Paterson, Passaic County (24); Newark City, Essex County (17); and Perth Amboy, Middlesex County (16).

Municipalities with CSOs that discharge into the Delaware River are: Camden City (28); Gloucester City (7); Camden County Municipal Utility (CCMUA) (1); and Trenton (1).

In NJ, about 88% of the 217 CSOs have netting or bar screens that when maintained will not let anything pass through that is larger than half an inch. In contrast, NYC has screened few of their 450 CSOs, relying instead on open water skimmer vessels to catch floatables after they have been discharged.

Pictures are from:

New Jersey Combined Sewer Overflow Control Program. Presentation To Citizen Advisory Committee. NY-NJ Harbor Estuary Program Urban Center. New York. October 11, 2006 http://www.harborestuary.org/pdf/CAC/NJDEP-HEPCAC-Oct112006.pdf

New York City’s Wastewater Treatment System. Cleaning the Water We Use • Protecting the Environment We Live In. New York City Department of Environmental Protection. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wwsystem.pdf

The first of a two-part blog about Combined Sewer Overflows is at http://middletown-nj.patch.com/blogs/bill-simmonss-blog.