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[Music] hello everyone and welcome to our uh amount of how many round tables we've done this one on water infrastructure and important discussion on the issue of the water infrastructure and the challenges and costs and progress in upgrading it for those who don't know spotlight well we are now 10 or 11 years old a public policy news site covering um issues like this one and politics in new jersey uh but also very important to our our mission is holding events like this one uh bringing folks together to have these discussions to get into the the nuances of issues like this uh we feel we're the only ones out there doing a lot of these a lot of these discussions and feel it's really worthwhile uh to who we are we've obviously had to pivot a bit to be doing them virtually uh someday we'll return uh to the live events but uh we feel a lot of ways that that this actually reaches even more more people uh for those who can't make this event we will be posting uh the full recording of it uh on our site in the coming days and certainly encourage you to to share it um for us to hold these events we very much uh rely on our sponsors and i want to take a little moment to thank them we could not be holding these for free uh without that support of our sponsors uh and certainly um they also help sustain us as a news organization as a whole and to say a few words about those sponsors i'd like to introduce steve charlotte our business development director thanks john and thanks everyone for joining us today for this important conversation on upgrading new jersey's water infrastructure i'm steve challet business development director with nj spotlight news it's my pleasure and privilege to be the producer of today's event we'd like to acknowledge our sponsors without whose support it would be impossible to bring you these events free of charge today's lead sponsor is new jersey american water new jersey american water is the largest water service provider in the state serving approximately 2.8 million people in 192 communities that translates into the providing of safe reliable water and wastewater service to nearly one in three people in the state new jersey american water is a leader in water treatment and technology with over 800 skilled professionals including experts in their five local water quality labs their team continuously monitors maintains and provides upgrades to the company's treatment and distribution facilities to ensure efficient operations and compliance with regulatory standards so thank you very much to new jersey american water for your support today we greatly appreciate it we'd like also to acknowledge the support of garden state laboratories incorporated garden state laboratories is a new jersey department of environmental protection certified lab garden state labs has facilities throughout the state of new jersey and performs both bacteriological and chemical testing with analytical excellence since 1943. so thanks very much to garden state labs for your support today we'd like to acknowledge also our promotional partner nj future nj future is a non-profit nonpartisan organization that promotes sensible growth redevelopment and infrastructure investments to foster vibrant cities and towns protection of natural lands and waterways enhanced transportation choices and access to safe affordable and aging friendly neighborhoods all to help fuel a strong new jersey economy so thanks very much again to our sponsors today we greatly appreciate your support and with that we'd like to begin our program so i'll turn it back over to john moody thank you very much thanks steve uh kind of dawned on me i may not have introduced myself at the beginning i'm john mooney the founding editor of nj spotlight um so before we go to the program a couple of uh housekeeping matters uh we certainly encourage our attendees to um engage in this discussion and there's a couple ways one is if you have questions um that you would like to see uh integrated into the conversation as best as we can given uh the time you can submit those in the q a uh tab of of your of your screen uh also we certainly encourage folks to chat among themselves through the chat function as well um so certainly do that we will be monitoring uh both but certainly the questions and we'll do our best to get those um to the moderator and have um and allow him to integrate i i will apologize in advance we will not get to all of them because of time but certainly it will help inform the discussion as well um we also as i've often said what's a conference even virtually without a hashtag and and um in our case it's water infrastructure nj uh and and do that with a tag of nj spotlight news and uh without further ado i'd like to introduce our moderator for the event uh john hertle has been a contributing writer for uh nj spotlight for many years and is really in large part led our water coverage uh in in many in many ways a wonderful writer himself also an author uh of a couple of travel books um but uh really it knows these issues as well as anybody in the state and and we're thrilled that he uh can be moderating this discussion so i will now turn the discussion over to john hertl thank you john thank you very much john um so just to frame our discussion today i mean we're here to look at the renewal of new jersey's antiquated uh water infrastructure the state's network of pipes carrying drinking water storm water and sewage is deteriorating because of its age and years of neglected maintenance uh it leaks millions of gallons of clean water dumps tons of raw sewage into rivers and creeks during rainstorms and costs public and private water suppliers millions of dollars in emergency repairs we'll be asking how bad the problem is what the solutions are and what progress is being made our panelists today offer four different uh perspectives on the problem they represent respectively an investor owned utility new jersey's largest a collaborative that brings together the expertise of more than 300 stakeholders um a state senator um and the uh the former head of a municipal utilities authority and so just uh we're very pleased to have a very knowledgeable distinguished panel here today uh just uh very quickly um we have cheryl norton who is president of new jersey american water uh the state's largest investor-owned water company um she's also a senior vice president of the company's eastern division and effective in march this year she was named american waters chief environmental officer overseeing environmental leadership and compliance across their businesses uh we also have mark moriello uh who began to working for uh the new jersey department of environmental protection in 1980 uh in 2006 he became uh an assistant commissioner for land use management and in 2008 was nominated by governor john corzine to serve as the commissioner of the dep um uh he served in that capacity until january of 2010 now owns his own consulting firm specializing in land use management and regular regulatory compliance we also we're very lucky to have andy cricken uh who's best known for his work as the executive director of the camden county municipal utilities authority where over where over more than 20 years he upgraded wastewater infrastructure built a new solar-powered wastewater treatment plant and sharply reduced the volume of sewage flowing into the delaware river hope i got all that right and it all while while minimizing extra charges for ratepayers and he's now a senior director with moonshot missions a non-profit that advises water companies on how to supply clean water and protect the environment afford affordably and he's also a senior advisor to the university of pennsylvania's water center and finally uh we have uh senator state senator troy singleton uh who was first elected to the new jersey general assembly in 2011 and the state senate in 2017. he now chairs the senate's community and urban affairs committee and sits on two other centers his primary focus remains on job creation economic development and the needs of new jersey's working families uh so i would like to sp uh to kick the first question off a question to mark um i was gonna ask if you wouldn't mind just kind of framing the discussion here uh by telling us uh what jersey waterworks is uh and and what it's um uh and what its uh achievements have been so far and i and i think i think i neglected to say in my introduction that you are the co-chair of jersey water works apologies for that uh so so uh please if you could just kind of give us the overview uh on that in about five minutes mark we'll take it from there thank you sure thank you john and thanks to everyone it's uh it's great to be here today uh i serve as the co-chair of the jersey water works steering committee along with jane kenny uh we've been around for about five years and just to give you a little context and expand a little bit on what john said about the state of the infrastructure new jersey you know water infrastructure drinking water waste water storm water it's like any other infrastructure whether it's transportation or what have you and uh it requires uh maintenance and upgrades in order to continue to function the interesting thing about water infrastructure is much of it is unseen and so unlike the crumbling bridge or road that everyone gets to the pleasure of driving on or seeing come and going to work a lot of people really don't understand what the condition of this infrastructure is in that is until we have a problem so water main breaks or we have a flooding condition where uh confined sewers in some of these urban areas overflow and you have raw sewage spilling onto the street you have lead in drinking water which is a major issue that came to the fore after flint a few years ago so one of the things that we really try to to focus on as as the building block is really an awareness and education of the scope of the problems that we face in new jersey and very similar to other uh industrialized states particularly older industrialized states and those that have such a large footprint adjacent to tidal waters where you have the influence of storms and tidal flooding but it's it's a major public health and safety concern whether you're talking about potable water water quality uh flooding the the csos and so what served as the catalyst to this jersey waterworks group forming was really the requirement that combined sewer overflow communities there are there are 21 communities in the state and we kind of refer to communities although responsibilities are shared between communities and utilities but they are required to submit long-term control plans to the dep and the epa get how they function what investments they're making what is the condition of their assets how are their operations uh efficiencies trying to be achieved so there was a big concern about how these towns and utilities would address the problem and a number of people met around that issue and it grew from a discussion of combined sewers to potable water infrastructure storm water infrastructure and so uh a group was was put together for a brief meeting uh five years ago or so and uh as a result of that there was a lot of momentum to form uh what is that we refer to it as a collaborative it's uh it's a group of water professionals and other interested individuals that are are trying to align our various uh efforts uh to a single uh goal of of identifying and advancing water infrastructure solutions everyone may have a different uh concern whether they represent water wastewater floodplain management or you're a municipal official or a legislator as we have the senator with us uh and that the point was to try to gather and focus all this energy and all this expertise into a collaborative effort as i said to try to identify and advance water infrastructure solutions we have about 600 members to date we have i think over 3 000 followers like all groups you know the work typically happens through committees and we've got five work committees uh that are very active and and uh one is asset management finance we have an education and outreach committee a green infrastructure committee a cso combined sewer overflow committee and we have a lead in drinking water task force that was a later group that was formed uh obviously due to the concerns and the need to focus on letting drinking water uh i could go on a little bit john and talk about some of the accomplishments but you tell me whether uh it's a good opportunity to pause yeah yeah yeah it is except for one thing mark if you could just explain to anybody out there who doesn't know what a cso is right and and forgive me for uh jumping past about cso stands for combined sewer overflow and it's a situation uh that we face in a number of older uh communities in new jersey where literally uh the sewer systems are combined so you have sanitary sewer infrastructure and you have storm water infrastructure storm sewers that are combined in such a way as during uh calm weather and fair weather everything's fine the waste water management systems uh function and and many of those ultimately result in discharge of treated wastewater into our surface waters uh during times of flooding and it's particularly uh problematic in urban communities with a lot of impervious cover and now with increasing intensity and frequency of these intense rainfall events uh the sewer systems that convey storm water and the sewer systems that convey the wastewater essentially are overwhelmed by those flood flows and the result was you get combined sewage discharges into the streets of of of some of these communities and when i talked about public awareness people not recognizing that that to me is is one of the most egregious examples of that that we have this condition in our cities that affects people it affects kids standing in the streets waiting for buses it affects people walking to the work and store and many of them probably don't even realize what uh that combined sewage is so that's the the quick uh cliff note version i i i think i think we're a lot a lot wiser now thank you uh so cheryl if we could if we could turn to you um uh so a new jersey american water has i i think been uh implementing uh been addressing some of the problems that mark has just kind of outlined is that right can you give us some examples of what you've been doing yes john we have been trying to address a lot of samples that mark was talking about just now as um as i think steve said earlier new jersey american is the largest water and and wastewater services provider in the state and we make lots of investments every single year to try to stay ahead of the game across the united states invisibly challenged and just in new jersey alone we spend um or we're planning to spend 1.7 billion dollars over the next five years in infrastructure improvements because we again want to stay ahead of that and um just last year 19 we spent about 375 million dollars across the state to make sure that we were investing in pipes pumps treatment plants um sewer mains trying to reline them or replace them and just make sure that our customers have the the best level of service that we can possibly provide one of the real benefits of those kinds of investments is that reliable and safe service but another huge benefit of that is the jobs that it brings to the economy and we estimate about 15 or 16 jobs for every million dollars that's spent um within the water wastewater industry and so that was about 6 000 jobs that we brought to the state in 2019 so that's a very very important part of it and our investments are made all across the state so from little falls to ocean city we've made investments um and again it's all about improving the quality of of the service to our customers and and being good stewards of the environment because the sewer overflows any of the kinds of issues that you might have from infrastructure failure can have negative impacts on our customers lives and on the environment around and also balance our operational costs so that are still everything we can to make good investments that will reduce our overall operating costs so that our customers don't feel such a huge rate increase as as a part of those investmen s that we make cheryl are you are you doing um this particularly or are you going to react to uh and various problems as they arise i'm sorry did you hear me i would say john that everything but some failures that we have and see um we do have to to react to those but for the most part we're being as proactive as we possibly can we just got a new program called um our start program which is referred to as solutions today and reinvesting tomorrow and basically that's just an acceleration in our capital investment um again leading to to more improvements to our systems and jobs part of that is is in response to the economic challenges that the state's facing around covid and so we want to make sure that we are accelerating our capital spend as much as we possibly can we have a workforce development piece of that we're working with the governor's office in the department of labor and also the new jersey council of technical and vocational schools um just tomorrow i'm going to be on a panel led by president fjord aliso with judy savage of the vote tech schools for careers in utilities week you know we've got a supplier diversity piece of that um the there are really good jobs in the utility industry and we want to make sure that the kids know that and people know that going forward so that we can help to spur the economy but we try to be as proactive as we possibly can we have five-year capital plans in place because we are planning at least that far in advance to try to stay ahead of the infrastructure challenges that we face right thank you um andy crick i'd like to turn to eurify may uh as somebody who who walked the walk on uh infrastructure renewal wastewater infrastructure renewal uh for more than 20 years in camden i mean what lessons can you offer to other counties and towns who are dealing with the same challenges well thanks john first of all thanks to everyone for the opportunity to appear in this panel with senator singleton and my colleagues on the panel i think from my perspective clean water utilities and drinking water utilities need to come at their responsibilities with the intentionality of being an anchor institution in their community and an environmental champion the old paradigm for water utilities was you know that they were regulated and that they saw themselves as a regular regulated entity but uh public wastewater and drinking water utilities really do need to think of themselves as anchor institutions uh to do the best that they can for the communities they serve and also environmental champions they are providing safe drinking water they're protecting the waterways and they are you know in that way the last bastions to protect the the source water from pollution so if that is the um the mindset of the of the utility then um the next approach is then to to look at things from a triple bottom line basis to look at cost efficiency environmental optimization and also community service and so i think that this infrastruc looking at i think the most important thing to start from that that lens from that focus that intentionality and then the solutions to the to the challenges that new jersey currently faces will can flow from that so you know the american society of civil engineers gave new jersey's water infrastructure a d plus grade uh which is obviously unacceptable in addition we have you know climate change and climate concerns that you know impact things and exacerbate that problem so the solution has to be looking at the utility from the standpoint of being an anchor institution protecting the public health and the environment has to be to find ways to replace the cap the capital infrastructure and to improve operations and optimize performance when i worked in camden your camden city is one of the poorest cities in the country you know immediate household income of twenty six thousand dollars they have pre-covered an unemployment rate of ten percent pre-coded uh you know there was no way to to deal with the infrastructure challenges canon face and also raise rates but by optimizing efficiency by basically harnessing the private sector model of efficiency to the public good and also using the new jersey state revolving fund the new jersey i bank infrastructure bank for low interest financing we were able to significantly improve our infrastructure clean up the the our zone of the delaware river and also uh improve the infrastructure of the city of camden sewer system and it's the wastewater treatment plant all without raising rates in fact when you calculated inflation it was a 40 rate cut for camden county residents so i think that's the kind of model that clean water utilities and drinking water utilities can adopt to again by seeing themselves as as champions of the environment in their community and looking for triple bottom line benefit community service cost reductions and environmental improvement they can achieve all three if that is their intentionality what needs to be done now with this combined sewer system problem is to take that same approach to look to upgrade capital improvements and also use the low interest financing that's available to us to achieve those those ends thank you um senator singleton um you've uh been the prime sponsor of uh a number of uh bills pertaining to the uh renewal of water infrastructure i was uh hoping that you can tell us about some of those bills what you're trying to achieve well first of all i'm proud to be here with such an esteemed group of panelists many i've worked with in the past so this is indeed an honor many of the stuff that i've tried to accomplish is to try and provide some clarity uh to this idea to this concept we know we have an infrastructure problem especially on our water infrastructure problem but the first things first is we have to be able to identify how deep and pervasive that problem is so we've tried to do our level best to at least provide legislation that provides account an accounting of that problem and then the next step is to take us to how we are able to pay for it and there's not a lot of buckets in which we can go to pay for it it's pretty simple it's either we're going to get federal inputs and federal health for resources there the state of new jersey is going to have to find a way to come up with the necessary resources to do it we're going to have to lean on many of our utility companies to share in that burden to be able to pay for it and there's going to be a portion that's going to have to come from ratepayers there's there's no other way to slice it because the problem and the magnitude of the problem is so great multi-billion dollar problem to be able to address just the lead service lines not even to have a broader conversation about lead paint and so are there other areas but we have to do it we have to figure out the solution and the mix of resources that are going to be necessary to accomplish this because there is no safe level of lead factually there's just no safe level of lead especially for our children there's no there's definitely no safe level of lead because our children have uh instances of developmental disabilities if they're exposed to it for any period any length of time so that is where we've tried to work on and the governor had a plan going into the pandemic he was going to ask the residents of new jersey to approve a half a billion dollar bond to be able to pay for it which frankly sounds like a lot of money but the scope and magnitude of the problem it is a relatively drop in the bucket no pun intended to really address the the true magnitude of this issue so we're gonna have to come together um and look through a shared uh shared sort of resource pie as it were to be able to get this done thank you uh cheryl on the cost issue i are you uh passing on some significant portion of the uh the capital investment on all the improvements that you're making uh to what extent are our rate payers footing that bill yeah john um because we're a regulated utility we are very um controlled in how we can pass costs along to our customers and they're still trying to figure out what that right way to to do that is so the service line is a little bit more complicated than just saying the lead service line there are a couple of key pieces to that lead service line there's a part that the customer typically owns and that's the part that's the most challenging the part that we own um if it's lead that's easy for us to roll into our projects and we get recovery cost recovery for that piece that we own and the big question is what happens to the piece that the customer owns because most of the customers who have lead service lines frankly can't begin to afford to have that replaced and so um we know that it's not safe for us to disrupt that line and not replace that service line so we're replacing it now when we come across it as the course of normal business doing projects we're replacing it on our own and um and trying to figure out what the best way is to get cost recovery for that if we can and as andy mentioned earlier the the um the i bank money and the low interest loans things like that are really good ways for us to try to minimize the cost as much as possible and and still be able to um do the things that we know i mean we absolutely have to it's it's public health and and we're going to do the right thing every time and we're going to change out that lead service line no matter who pays for it i i i think that the uh the big picture and correct me if i'm wrong here mark is that uh you guys have have uh estimated that it's going to cost 25 billion dollars over 20 years is that correct it's a to to to bring the entire system up to up to par that is correct john i mean it's it's their estimates that are that are provided by by other groups but that's the number it's over a billion dollar a year uh funding gap and uh you know the the sources are not uh unlimited you know right now utilities and and state and local government pay a majority of those costs uh obviously rate payers contribute the federal government not so much uh you know a lot of us were were pretty excited a few years ago when you know it was four years ago we heard a lot about you know get me an office and and we'll have a big stimulus bill and an infrastructure bill uh we saw how that could work uh about 12 years ago the american recovery and reinvestment act um it was money that was that was quickly put to use and and fixing infrastructure creating jobs you know the hope is that uh that may be part of the solution coming up but you know the senator mentioned something that people have to recognize is that these problems while they're uh serious and they're significant and the costs to deal with the problems are are daunting to say the least these didn't just happen overnight the these are problems that evolved over a long period of time incrementally and you know human nature is we as we like to do things quickly we want things now we want everything fixed now but the reality is we have to have an approach that some will criticize as not being enough because of the funding limitations and i think the way to look at it a little more optimistically is we have to begin somewhere and uh i think the key is that if you get the plans in place and you get the support in place then as the money flows the projects can happen quickly uh we we always talk about shovel ready projects and i can't speak for cheryl but i imagine all these utilities have a long list of capital projects that they would like to be able to uh implement and so uh i think we have to have this concerted effort this collaborative approach and obviously the legislature played a big deal with this and the governor are very supportive and we thank senator he's got great colleagues uh you know senator smith and and others who uh to work with but uh they're they're solvable problems uh it will not be solved quickly but if we get on the right track uh that that big number uh becomes less scary over time so senator singleton i mean what what role can the legislature play in providing this money well uh john the the simplest answer is that we have to uh appropriate money to begin the process right i think that's the simplest and most straightforward answer um out of a 40 plus billion dollar budget pre-covet which has been decimated by the pandemic we're going to have to get back to sort of prioritizing uh health and this to me is a prioritization of people's health and as we said as mark talked about we have to begin somewhere so it is my hope that we'll begin with a state investment that will be multiplied by a true federal investment to address this issue it was a couple years ago i know the federal government looked at uh providing billions of dollars in this space uh to begin this process but we're going to need as i said every actor in this space who has a stake in it so that's the federal government the state government that's going to be our utilities and it's going to be right pairs uh we're going to have to have that honest conversation about the magnitude of the problem and present a road map to especially to taxpayers present a roadmap to them about all right here's how we get to removing all these lines here's what it's going to cost us and here's how it begins but it has to start with the state of new jersey making an investment the governor talked about a 500 million dollar investment i supported that i still support it um i think we just need to find the the the mechanism now in the covet reality to make that happen yeah i mean it's gonna it's more challenging even more challenging now isn't it i mean given the economic devastation of the pandemic john it it absolutely is more challenging right now but if you if you think about it think about the cost if we don't do it right so if you think about the cost the cost in special education dollars the cost in healthcare dollars the cost in the in all the environmental infrastructure work that we are forsaking because the economic multiplier is real it puts people to work it gets money back flowing in our economy so we have to to make the commitment and have to be honest and forthright with the people of new jersey the taxpayers to say look this is an investment now to save us money in the long term and i think if we do that honestly and we adhere to that that goal honestly then i think people will understand that this is the right thing to do and the timing needs to happen now because the longer we wait it's just more expensive it becomes but that one of the questions that arises from from what you just said is whether people get it i mean whether people recognize that there's there's this there's this massive problem uh which they don't necessarily see until there's a burst pipe but you know as as mark or somebody said that you know this is this this is about pipes underground that people don't really see uh and so i i just wanted to throw the question out there to all of you actually is you know do you think the public gets it and and and if there's going to be a sort of initiative that the senator proposes i mean are people is there enough understanding out there that would allow that that would kind of create this political will uh for this kind of money to be available maybe could we start with you andy uh yes thanks well i think that first of all i think it's critical that we make sure that people know about the importance of you know safe drinking water and you know clean water et cetera but also in addition to asking the ratepayers as the senator said to do their part we also have to find ways to reduce the the cost to uh those those rate payers and i i'm going to suggest three three ways right off the top of my head that can that can accomplish that first of all i think it's really critical that there be a low income assistance program for water in the state of new jersey just like there's a lot heat low income heat heating and energy program a federal program it should be the same for water and this is something that the public and private water utilities all agree on the water is the basic right and i want it by the way quick segue i want to thank senator singleton for the environmental justice law that was pat just signed by the governor ast month but it's critical to a low-income assistance program to make sure that utilities can public or private raise rates as needed to correct this infrastructure gap but that without unduly burning low income households that can't afford it utilities are right now in this terrible situation where they need to upgrade infrastructure but don't want to unduly burden these low income households that can't afford it and so therefore with a low income assistance program for water that would enable to provide a safety net for the uh underserved communities low-income households and that enable the the infrastructure utilities to raise rates for infrastructure or for people who can't afford it that's the first thing second thing in the combined sewer communities where storm water as mark explained earlier is you know because it hits impervious surface then combines with the combine the sewer system when you mix a gallon of stormwater with a gallon of sewage you get two gallons of sewage and therefore that's that has to be treated at the wastewater treatment just the same as sewage that's flushed down the toilet or in the shower but in new jersey uh up until last year you could not charge for impervious surface creating combined sewage however the legislature did pass a law last year allowing for the creation of stormwater utilities and stormwater fees so therefore owners of large impervious surfaces should pay for the combined sewage they're creating during a rain event and not have that burden on on homeowners which it is currently now just to give you an illustration the utility i work for in camden up until earlier this year on a dry weather day camden would have would generate about 10 million gallons a day of sewage based on people flushing toilets showers sinks etc and on a significant main event that 10 million gallons would go up to 100 million gallons so the rain contribution is very significant and yet the rate the rate payers the homeowners and apartment dwellers they pay pay for that they don't know they're paying for that impervious surface and that isn't fair so a stormwater fee would generate revenue which would help offset that infrastructure gap and the last thing and i said it before is the state revolving fund the eye bank for for example a project that we did in camden was to to gen convert our sewage and our sludge into electricity therefore improving our resiliency against power outages and climate making more climate resilient but also the savings in sludge disposal and electricity costs were greater than the annual debt service so we could we could improve our infrastructure without raising rates so those three opportunities a low income persistence to free utilities up so they can charge the proper rates for infrastructure without unduly harming low-income households uh storm water fee to make sure that people that owners of impervious service are paying their fair share and then you just as use of our i bank our state revolving fund to improve infrastructure without raising rates right uh mark you you work with uh 600 odd organizations at jersey waterworks by the way i'm sorry i i think i mentioned the figure of 300 in my introduction obviously i was seriously wrong about that uh but the fact that you know so so given the number of organizations and the breadth of organizations that you work with i mean do you think the public gets it well i think uh we're all collectively trying to make sure that they do i mean there there are obvious signs and people who live in certain communities i think understand these issues maybe a little bit more because they're they experience these i mean you think of a place like um like hoboken you know a couple of times a year you're going to see a water main break in hoboken it's like you know you're going to see it uh it shuts down the businesses it floods homes one of the the committees that we've established in jersey water works the education outreach committee the sole focus of that committee is to get people to understand it because until people understand the scope of the problem the costs and the challenges you can't expect people to mobilize to support any of the the great ideas that come from all these these groups and these talented people and you can't count on the support that the senator and his colleagues need in the legislature when those tough funding decisions have to be made you know this year the governor does have 60 million dollars a down payment on a water solution water infrastructure solution the state has received awards from epa through the state revolving fund 65 million for clean water and 19 million for drinking water these are small amounts of money but i think uh the educational work and and it's not just telling people about the problems the costs and students but as we ex we are able to complete upgrades and make improvements and andy's got success stories that will really are tremendous those those are opportunities to educate showing people how the money is spent and what does it mean to them in their community in the long term and so it's a it's a challenge but it's a core component of the jersey water work uh working committee and we hope that it reaps those benefits that we wanted to thanks i'd just like to turn very quickly to uh an issue that uh one or two of you raised in your open your earlier remarks and that is on climate change um you know if we're going to be seeing or maybe we are already are seeing bigger storms more frequent storms increase precipitation uh sea level rise uh how is that going to affect our water supply our waste water supply um and and you know what what provisions should be made and i was hoping to split to start with you on that one cheryl sure yeah john i i think we are absolutely seeing some climate variability we're seeing bigger storms um longer droughts more frequent um dry spells things like that and and it's really really important that as a utility a water utility a wastewater utility that we're taking steps to make sure that our our facilities are resilient so we have to have backup power so when the storms come through when the power goes out we have to make sure that we have backup supplies and just make sure that we have um things in place so that our employees know how to run a system manually our operators have gotten very very good at running our systems using computers and scada but when that goes down they have to know how to go back to the old way of doing business and being able to run things manually and so that's a big training challenge for us and we have frequent drills to prepare for any kind of emergency situation that might be coming about because we are concerned about it we're seeing um the saltwater line move up and down the delran um you know at the the delaware river and so it's really a big challenge um to try to stay ahead of that and look at what the causes are and how we can try to help prevent that as much as possible how can we manage that and how can we be prepared for that years down the road if we have to look for a different intake or look for a different source water um and it's that sounds like you are you are considering the possibility of a a different moving the the intake further upstream then we're not really thinking about we're thinking about it a little bit but we're not really planning to do that we're we're in um we have been collaborating with several different organizations who are looking at it and are very involved in um keeping an eye on that but we know that in other areas where we've had changes to our source water where we've had to worry about contaminations or um you know maybe changes in the volumes of water that come past our intake we've got to look ahead at that so we're always trying to look far out at least five to ten years and plan ahead and say well what would happen if and so we start to have those initial conversations so that if that comes up we've got some ideas and we're starting to really think about it um andy you're nodding your head uh did you have something to add on the climate change issue uh yes i do well first of all i agree with everything that charles said i mean i think that the in new jersey the things that we're facing are more severe you know storms so therefore more volume uh power out more probability of power outage and also river level rise and those are the these are at least three things that we're going to have to deal with i mean sometimes people don't believe in climate change i know i certainly do but even if you don't believe in climate change all you can look at say hurricane sandy and see that climate history shows that our existing infrastructure is inadequate for how the climate is already even if it doesn't get worse and if it does get worse it only exacerbates the problem with regard to the the power outages is that cheryl said it's essential to have backup power to make sure that the wastewater treatment plants are resilient as i mentioned earlier we use a eye bank loan to convert our sludge into electricity so that our plant runs independent of the of the power grid so therefore if there's a power outage our plant still runs and those are the kinds of things that could be replicated uh solar power is another thing that can that we treatment plants can use to reduce their vulnerability to power outages and climate change with regard to river level rise that is something the entire state is going to have to face uh the epa indicated that the delaware river supposed to rise by a foot and a half by 2050 so that means that everything the current high tide will be a foot and a half higher so that has to be dealt with and then lastly um because of the impervious surface of the more severe storms it's essential that we de-pave our cities and implement green infrastructure solutions to try to soak up that storm water and also green infrastructure can lead to green jobs which we found in camden with our power corps program uh putting at-risk youth to work to maintain green infrastructure so good can be get good in that way and lastly it's important that we use the existing capacity of our sewer systems to store more water make sure they're clean as frequently as possible so they hold as much water as possible if there's going to be more severe storms right i need to turn to uh questions from the audience uh which which which were uh submitted uh well we have some that were submitted when people registered and others that have been are being submitted as we as our program goes on we have many questions here and so um i i have to apologize in advance and say we're not going to get to all of them but uh i hope we can get a fair of a fair sprinkling here so the first one i'd like to have is from uh jeff rollins who's the executive director of the evasion uh emmy and his question is what is the best metric to evaluate asset management performance where some systems need a lot of replacement and investment and other systems do not uh cheryl you might be uh best place to uh to talk about that yes i think that you have to look at when i don't think there's one specific metric that you can look at but i think you've got to look at your system as a whole you've got to look at your replacement cycle of your your mains you've got to look at your the the number of main breaks that you have each year and and really try to prioritize and target that for your underground infrastructure in addition to that you've also got to consider your treatment facilities and all of the changing regulations that are coming about so it's kind of a moving target if you will with the perfluorinated compounds that are getting regulated more and more each year in the state of new jersey uh now we're looking at a regulation for 1 4 dioxane which is another compound that is problematic in the state of new jersey so and you've got the lead issues so i i don't think there's any one metric but there are numerous things that you need to be looking at your regulatory performance are you having notices of violations regularly all those pieces and parts have to come together in order to be able to manage your assets well and make sure that you're providing safe clean water to your customers absolutely here's another question from sally robinson an administrative assistant in the camden city school district and and and she says uh and this is a very broad question here but i think it's i think it's an important one um how far are we in the progress of our water quality to ensure that it is safe and affordable and i wanted to ask you senator first of all if you if uh how you respond to that what what would you say to that lady i would say to her the first thing is uh and it goes back to our earlier question john that you asked in order to get the public to understand this we have to have the metrics in place to be able to identify exactly how many less service lines we have i don't think there's anyone in either the utility space the board of public utilities the ratepayer advocate who can say unequivocally we have this many number of lead service lines so it was the first step that we were taking is to identify those lead service lines so we know how pervasive the problem is individual utilities um no and i know cheryl's been doing a heck of a job of identifying those on behalf of new jersey american water and others around the state but that's the first thing right because we don't know how big the problem is and i don't think anyone can tell you so we need to get our hands around that data first and then we'll be able to give an honest and accurate answer to it but once we do get that data we need to immediately get into the business of trying to move those lines and get rid of them and that's the whole goal of the legislative initiatives that we've done so first steps first is to identify so we know how big the problem is which we don't know right now and then immediately go to corrective action doesn't the city of newark have a pretty good idea i mean they've obviously been front and center in this uh in the lead service lines issue don't they have a good idea of how many they've got and what they've had to deal with the city city of newark is one that has may have its arms around so they've talked about being able to replace it the question is from a lady in camden right now and the city of camden couldn't tell you right and that's not a knock on knockout in the city it's just an idea that we need to do a better job of identifying those so we want to make sure that every community regardless can identify and know how many they have another question here and this goes back to the funding uh question that we've mentioned before uh this is from jacqueline rhodes who is the assistant director of the pinelands preservation alliance do you think a combination of local and state referendums is the next step for funding water infrastructure improvements mark uh could you address that is that is a referendum uh something that you think might be necessary to to free up the kind of uh funding that we need well if you look at our past history and use uh open space preservation as an example you know farmland preservation and open space for years and years that was the only way that we were able to accomplish large-scale land preservation was through uh bond issues and people would vote on it every four eight twelve years uh and it's it's an effective mechanism the problem is that you have peaks and valleys and so uh assuming the bond issue is approved uh the money is generated the money is spent and then you have no money and so obviously a stable source of funding is a much better option because not only do you have continual funding to support the projects but you're able to plan for how that money will be spent and prioritized over a longer term and it's much more efficient as a process so certainly any any opportunity to get funds in place is important but i think this this issue is so important that it really needs to be treated uh the way i think open space uh funding was treated and ultimately uh to establish a stable source of funding that we can rely uh year and year out just one other thing i'd like to mention john and following up on the prior two questions is that uh the information about the condition of the systems and uh very important and one one initiative that jersey waterworks has implemented is something called jersey water check and the idea is to provide uh residents of the state with a single online uh venue where they can access from on every water and wait these waters in the state uh this is all publicly available information it's not stuff that we made up but it's hard to get information in many cases and so jersey water check provides this opportunity for people to go to a single site and access this info and it gets at a lot of what we talked about people increasing their understanding of their water system the assets how the uh the rates are structured and so on so uh it's it's an informational tool that we're very excited about releasing there's no implied acts to grind with anybody it's just uh people need information and and is important in helping us transform our our infrastructure in new jersey yeah um here's a question about stormwater utilities uh and this comes from uh henry geider who's the policy director of the new jersey league of conservation voters how can stormwater utilities help municipalities counties or regional geographies reduce costs and make the critical infrastructure investments in our water and storm water managements that we need to see andy do you have any thoughts on that i i do um i look right across the river for me in camden i look at phil the city of philadelphia that implemented a storm water fee and used that stormwater fee to significantly reduce the cost of their combined sewer overflow improvements upon ordinary ratepayers as i said earlier in camden on a dry weather day the flow is 10 million gallons a day on a wet weather day the flow can be 100 million gallons a day and yet homeowners are paying for that 90 billion gallons of that has to be treated just the same as the first 10 uh because there is no storm water fee on impervious surface so i think that it's it's really a just thing or don't an unjust thing to have homeowners paying that burden for that those real costs of conveyance and treatment um implementation of a stormwater fee can put the burden of the of the cost of treatment for wet weather flow where on the those who are generating and so that can significantly reduce uh the cost the remaining costs on homeowner and one thing i would mention is is that and i do thank the legislature and the governor for putting a law into effect that allowing stormwater fees and stormwater utilities last year they weren't allowed until last year you don't necessarily need to form a stormwater utility to have a stormwater fee so it doesn't have to be that the you know the complication of forming a brand new agency which can have its you know those challenges an existing utility can charge the stormwater fee as well so to me it's a really a sense of equity excellent um i'd like to there's a there's a question here that goes back to um to the climate change issue and this one comes from uh beverly yanich uh who is the an assistant to the mayor of cape may new jersey uh and her question is what are the expectations of desalination operations in new jersey's future and cheryl i uh to pick up uh on your on some of your comments about climate change i'm wondering if you'd like to address that one yes i think that um desalination is definitely a solution that can work um in new jersey it works on the california side of the united states it works in florida it works overseas a lot it's just an expensive way of producing water so everything that we can do to prevent the need through conservation through water management um we can do to prevent the implement going to be cost effective so um so if we put desal in the operating costs are pretty dramatic and so we want to make sure that that really is the right solution the the place and and i i don't think i'm hopeful that no time in the near future will we have to put that into new jersey just because of that cost and that pressure on the customers and the need to keep those rates as affordable as possible so so you would see desalination as kind of a last resort is that the idea i wouldn't say it's the last resort i would say it's definitely not the first resort it's something that i would i would want to try to work really hard to prevent from getting to that point through conservation and other measures to make sure water management plans to make sure that we don't have to go there but if we do it's it produces great water that's for sure it's just a little bit costly right um i funding is always going to be an issue here i mean as we've discussed it's it's uh especially an issue right now with the economy um but i do but there's a question here in fact that the funding piece has come up several times in these questions that i've received uh this one comes from william holman who is a professor at rutgers university what sources of funding are available to small municipal water systems to upgrade infrastructure um senator are you uh do you feel um able to tackle that one well i think uh was as was talked about and i think andy uh talked about it at length the the i bank is a great tool that any municipality should avail themselves to try and address their infrastructure issues broadly but for very simply identifying a specific pot of money that's out there obviously i think the that is something that has to be developed and matured but the existing infrastructure bank the ibank would be the first step that i think any uh municipality should look to respect for their water systems to get access to to capital at low low interest rates to be able to upgrade their systems right right um here's another interesting question uh from uh rob uh robert keskis who is uh who was a former is now a water consultant uh former dep official should customers that use significantly more water as a result of summer lawn in irrigation pay substantially more for water infrastructure uh mark would you like to opine on that i'm not sure i would uh but no i i i i really don't uh claim to understand the intricacies of rate structures you know uh for the utilities and as overseen by the bpq i mean cheryl did bring up a good point we all have to be cognizant of the the cost of utility service and and it is a burden for how new jersey we know that now if you're talking about large-scale irrigation typically farms use their own wells to irrigate so if you're talking about large agricultural operations uh they have water he's talking about lawns here specifically he doesn't mention sorry he doesn't mention agriculture yeah yeah i mean this is a potentially controversial controversial area isn't it yeah i mean there have been times where there have been restrictions i mean uh and you see that all over california has greatly restricted the ability they dictate what type of landscaping is planted now their concern is more about wildfire and it's important that they do that so you know there are tools that towns can take that the state uh if it's got the political will to regulate uh water use to a greater degree i think personally i would agree with you i think uh there there could be some of those limits uh it's obviously not gonna be very popular to do so but uh again uh cheryl may have a little better perspective on that because she's in the uh right in the in the thick of that that issue uh cheryl do you want to can't respond to that very quickly we are we're rapidly running out of time here but i just wanted to give you the chance yeah i think you've hit on the key points it really if you if you put a high rate structure in at the the higher usage you can really drive down the usage amount that people that people um take on each month particularly for irrigation and that discretionary water use but it is very controversial and it's usually not a popular program but it does help the large users pay more when they're using it for discretionary purposes great uh so we're uh we've got to we're almost at the end here so we've got to uh what we call the lightning round and so we're um we're going to ask each of the panelists to uh uh give us a one minute each one minute recap of the uh of the key takeaway that they would like us to uh to conclude from this discussion and by the way uh senator singleton i don't see on my screen anymore i don't know whether he had to he had to jump off i used to are you still there senator no he's gone ah well okay in that case in that case the remaining three have slightly more than a minute each uh shall we start with you show yes to recap i would say that infrastructure investments planned infrastructure investments are critically important to the sustainability of our systems across the board and it's also you also have to factor in the new regulations that are coming about the the contaminants that are coming about um dealing with the lead service lines and figuring out how how to make sure that um you're keeping the water safe for customers in the in the interim process of why you're changing out those lead service lines treated right you can do that absolutely and um and just make sure that you're continuing to manage all of your assets and look at all the moving parts and pieces um going forward as things are changing on the climate front on the regulatory front and as well as just the failing infrastructure in general andy um the fact that our infrastructure was great at a d plus in the state of new jersey which is by the way similar across the country there's a significant infrastructure gap the infrastructure gap will only be worsened as the climate gets more severe and so therefore it is essential that we deal with it now to protect the public health and to protect our environment there are ways to do that um we are fortunate in new jersey to have the eye bank which has you know not unlimited resources but significant resources to make infrastructure improvements more affordable also a low income assistance program for for water would enable utilities to charge full pricing without sinking the the ships of low-income households which would enable more revenue and also in the case of combined sewer communities a storm water fee would add additional revenue to offset the cost of expensive infrastructure improvements i also just want to talk a bit about the need for social justice as a member of the new jersey environmental justice advisory council that we do these things in a manner that is is um fixes the problem but does not put an undue burden on overly burdened communities and overly burdened households and so i do commend senator singleton for the environmental justice law and i do think that it is important that a low-income uh household affordability act be put in place to protect the those households while the infrastructure gap is being closed mark final word to you sir well i mean i think cheryl and andy really gave a great summary of of uh the highlights of the issues that that are important that we have to pay attention to i guess i would just encourage people uh to be uh to take an active role in all of this and um regardless of your background your expertise and and which piece of the infrastructure uh puzzle you you may hold uh there are opportunities to work in a collaborative fashion i would i would encourage you uh to uh you know join jersey water works uh join a committee um it's initially i wasn't sure where this group would go and how effective it would be and i have to say i'm really impressed and it's really due to the makeup of the members uh that's all it is and and the idea of bringing people together with a common focus i think is a is a an opportunity to to have productive outcomes the group does hold an annual conference this year it will be virtual like everything else unfortunately but uh if you want to see a little bit more about what the group does what we're like our conference is on december 9th 10th and 11th it's not all day it's a few hours each day but i think the message is uh collaborative efforts are effective uh and when you have the year of the legislature we have the senator joining us today that's that's a significant point um we can make progress and uh i would encourage everyone to get engaged thank you very much uh so uh thank you to all to the panelists um and uh to all of our attendees out there i don't know how many of you there are i understand quite a few uh and so so that's all we have for our discussion i'd like to hand it back to john mooney for closing remarks hi everybody um and i also want to thank uh our moderator john hertl um did a great job and uh carrying this conversation forward i think um some really uh invite insightful stuff and and also want to thank the audience for what were some really thoughtful questions as well um that that was a some great interaction on on what folks wanted to hear and and what our audience or what our panelists um expertise could bring to that uh as i mentioned in the beginning this event was recorded um and we will be posting it uh on our news site in the next couple of days we will also be sending uh sending a copy of that link uh to all the registrants so uh through your email and we encourage you to to uh share it with others who weren't able to be here today um you know what's important in all these things is that we continue these conversations um this is really just uh one step in that process and and i think you know the conversations uh continuing uh in in our own circles of of acquaintances and friends i think is is important to this entire process and obviously the civic discourse so once again thank you to our panelists john hurdle our audience um and uh everybody hope you enjoy the rest of your week thank you 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