Passaic and the Highlands: Perfect together

Sunday, April 27, 2003
By WILLIAM P. O'HEARN
SPECIAL TO THE HERALD NEWS

Many people in our county would be surprised to learn that much of the North Jersey Highlands would not exist as we know them today if it weren't for dirty water - polluted drinking water in the lower Passaic River, to be exact.

Beginning in the 1860s, people in Clifton, Paterson, Passaic and Newark seemed to be dying from drinking water out of the Passaic River and certain key tributaries. In the early days of the industrial revolution, living conditions in these cities were terrible: "Pigs roamed the streets in search of garbage, animal carcasses littered the streets, and the waterways that traversed the city carried away household wastes in full view for all to see. The poor and immigrant classes lived in dark, wretched tenements without running water or basic sanitary amenities.

"Consequently, Newark, like most northeastern cities, was periodically plagued by outbreaks of epidemics. Infectious diseases such as cholera, typhoid, yellow fever, dysentery and small pox claimed thousands of lives, mostly the poor."

Water samples taken from the Passaic River showed it to be of dreadful quality: "Instead of sweet-tasting, limpid water, we have a bluish-red liquid, disgusting to the taste and smell." In an article in the Newark Evening News on June 14, 1888, the Rev. H. F. Barnes, of the Fairmount Baptist Church, said, "The lower portion of the Passaic receives the pollution of 250,000 people and 375 tons of excretia per day. The pollution from factories and other sources is beyond calculation. ... . Truly this is not water. It is a poisonous drug, and reminds me of the words of the old witches in 'Macbeth.'"

The speaker also referred to the danger of an epidemic that might arise if typhoid fever should break out in Paterson. By 1890, Newark had the highest mortality rate in the country. With over 27 deaths per 1000 population, more people in the city were dying from disease than before the Civil War.

Just as New York City looked to Westchester County and the Catskills to find clean drinking water, the cities along the lower Passaic looked to northern Passaic County and the Pequannock and Wanaque River valleys for their water supply. They responded to this drinking water crisis in three ways: The Passaic Water Company moved its drinking water intake on the river five miles upstream to Little Falls in 1899. Newark created its 35,000-acre water system along the Pequannock River in 1892. And the four cities contracted with the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission beginning in 1916 to build the Wanaque Reservoir in Ringwood and Wanaque, which was completed in 1930. These water systems are all still working today and the Passaic Valley Water Commission continues to supply drinking water from its plant in Little Falls.

The construction of these water systems had a beneficial, although unintended side effect - it put more than 30,000 acres of watershed land in upper Passaic County off limits to development. These heavily forested lands surrounding the drinking water reservoirs have kept the water pure for almost 100 years, without the need for expensive treatment plants for most of those years.

The watershed lands also served as the base for other state and county parks that have been added to them as municipal leaders began to understand that open space has important recreational and tourist value in addition to its role in preserving water quantity and quality.

Because of the city managers' far-sighted investments in water supply systems, we enjoy healthful drinking water in our urban areas, and some of the wildest, most pristine wilderness in the state in West Milford, Ringwood, Wanaque and Bloomingdale. However, because of sprawl development, which tends to flow outward from urban areas to the rural section of the county, both the Highlands and the urban areas are now at risk.

William P. O'Hearn is a member of the Highlands Committee of NJ Sierra Club.