Water, water everywhere. But not so much of it to drink.
Jim Waltman, Executive Director of the Watershed Institute (formerly the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Assoc.) speaking to a gathering of local Sierra Club members at Mercer County Community College, informed us that our senses have not been deceiving us. New Jersey has seen a recent increase of 3.5 inches of rain across the state. That’s a lot of extra water – New Jersey is getting wetter and wetter – and when it runs off the state’s increasing numbers of hard surfaces (roads, parking lots, driveways) this extra volume floods roads, railroads, waterways, and communities, overwhelming sewer systems, and in some cases sending the extra flow into sources of drinking water.
Waltman, an acknowledged expert in storm water analysis and management, noted that with our climate, and oceans clearly heating up, they are producing more precipitation. Much of that recent precipitation comes in big weather events, notably in hurricanes like Florence, Michael, and Harvey. Arriving in those storms, the resulting additional water is becoming a serious issue all along the East coast. At the same time, because these events are not evenly spaced out, there is, in some places, substantial drying of our soils. We are being challenged from two directions.
Additionally, these climate changes that have warmed our atmosphere and oceans have slowed down the Jet Streams or Trade Winds, so that they hold weather in place for longer periods, often allowing for more rain in one region. (It is the warmer oceans that produce more evaporation, and thus rain.)
Adding to the increasing precipitation problem is the increase and spread of development in communities without planning for and building in arrangements for the increased water volume. And this increasing runoff creates all sorts of additional problems. In flooding roads, parking areas, and industrial locations this runoff washes fuels, oils, and chemicals from many sources.
into our soils, sewers, and water bodies. In our region, hard surfaces have increased by 25 percent, and the runoff volumes have increased by five times.
Despite the 1985 Clean Water Act, pollution in our water is in many places increasing. There is not sufficiently wide and consistent adherence to the laws.
The Watershed Institute is one organization that is responding to these developments. Its goal is to make water clean, safe, and healthy. And it does this by becoming active in advocacy, education, and stewardship. To be effective, it pursues “deep environmental investigation.”
With this knowledge, it reaches out to communities, but also students and schools, and in doing so, models “best practices.” Its goal is to change the mindset on these issues, and then change the laws.
In the small state of New Jersey, there are 30 watersheds, that is, lands which shed water into streams and rivers. Some larger watersheds include smaller ones, but all need preservation and protection to be healthy.
How does the Watershed Institute tackle these wide-ranging problems? First, it advocates reducing development, the wrong or inadequate concepts of development. Healthy development plans for the growing volume of water runoff. Second, it recommends increased monitoring and protection. Third, it urges the creation of stream buffer zones to protect water quality.
But it is key to recognize that all of this requires more aware and active management. And this means that towns and counties need to identify the problems, and adopt solutions.
One relatively new approach (demonstrated at the Watershed,) is to adopt or create ways to hold water, until it can be absorbed into the earth. This means establishing rain gardens, or swales, or cisterns (or rain bladders,) and even roof gardens, all of which can hold rain water temporarily, rather than allow it to run off, flooding communities, and becoming polluted. Porous pavements are another solution, as they allow rainwater to sink into the soil rather than simply run off.
In short, there are ways of managing our increasing precipitation (as there are ways for managing our warming environments by reducing emissions,) but both require substantial planning and a changing of habits. The Watershed Institute can guide communities through these adaptations.
But the required planning and implementing will require investment in these solutions. One lesson that recent storms and hurricanes, including Sandy, have alerted us to is that investment ahead of flooding and other impacts has been shown to be substantially cheaper than cleaning up, rebuilding, and correcting the results of poor, or no, planning.
