SOUTH DENNIS –– Cape May County is a peninsula surrounded by the salty seawater of the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean and the people who live here get their drinking water from wells drilled into underground aquifers.
Because the 263-square-mile county has seen huge residential development over the past decades and each summer thousands of thirsty tourists flock to its beaches, the fresh water has been pumped out of the ground faster than it could be replenished and salty water is trying to take its place.
It has already in some places such as Cape May, which was forced to build the state’s first desalination plant, and Wildwood, which pumps its water from offshore in Rio Grande. Eventually, if nothing were done, saltwater intrusion would affect much of the county’s potable water supply.
State and county officials have known of this water dilemma for many years, which is why one local legislator tried to do something about it.
Jack Gibson, an engineer from Sea Isle City, served as a state Assemblyman for the First District from 1992 to 2002 and again from 2004 to 2006. In summer 2001, a Gibson-sponsored bill was approved that funded a study of the county’s water supply.
The report was recently completed.
“This study is comprehensive. It’s outstanding,” Gibson told the Herald.
“I’m very proud of the study. I hope it will help local governments make the appropriate decisions regarding the future water supply for this county.”
A few weeks ago the 178-page study was published and on Nov. 19 it was presented to the public at a meeting of the local chapter of the Sierra Club at the county ARC headquarters on Route 9 in South Dennis.
Pierre Lacombe, a geologist with the U.S. Geologic Survey and author of the study, spoke to the Sierra Club.
In the study’s abstract, Lacombe wrote:
“Stewards of the water supply in New Jersey are interested in developing a plan to supply potable and non-potable water to residents and businesses of Cape May County until at least 2050. The ideal plan would meet projected demands and minimize adverse effects on currently used sources of potable, non-potable, and ecological water supplies.”
In addition to saltwater intrusion, Lacombe said the county’s freshwater aquifers have also seen water-level declines. The adverse affects on ecological water supplies include premature drying of seasonal wetlands, delayed recovery of water levels in the water-table aquifer, and reduced stream flow.
Lacombe said the study proposed nine what-if scenarios.
The first three scenarios showed what would happen if nothing changed. They indicated that saltwater intrusion would eventually affect public wells used by Wildwood and Lower Township as well as some near-shore domestic wells.
In scenarios four through nine, withdrawals from some wells in Lower and Middle Townships, the Wildwoods, and the Cape Mays, would be terminated, reduced, or increased.
Some scenarios call for more desalination plants, while others require wells to be moved inland along the spine of the county, and others inject wastewater into wells along the Delaware Bay to keep saltwater at bay.
“Simulations indicate that future Scenarios 4 to 9 would reduce many of the adverse effects of Scenarios 1, 2, and 3,” the report states. “(However) No future scenario will minimize all adverse impacts.”
As Gibson pointed out, now that the study is completed local governments can determine, which scenario or combination of scenarios work best for the county.
Gibson said that it might be difficult for individual municipalities to work together on implementing a plan. He said the county Municipal Utilities Authority would be the “obvious choice” to coordinate the effort.
Gibson noted that the only thing missing from the report is a cost analysis for the implementation of the different scenarios.
“Costs are an important piece to this,” he said. “Officials can’t make the necessary decisions without knowing how taxpayers would be affected. But I’m glad we’ve made it to this point. We know what the problem is and we can move on from here.”
Larry Newbold, a former count agricultural agent and water supply advocate, was also glad that the report was completed, but angry that it took so long.
“The entire Civil War from start to finish was about four years,” he said noting the first shot was fired at Fort Sumpter on April 12, 1861 and Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.
“We should have had this report years ago and we should do something about the water supply now,” he said. “The county and local towns have been allowing builders to overdevelop for years, making the situation even worse.”
Newbold can recite the exact years, months and days that it took for the report to be released.
Newbold was also concerned about the potential cost of the proposed scenarios.
“There are no price figures for each of the nine scenarios. That will require another study and report,” he said.
“A 178-page report for $2.2 million equals $12,359 per page,” he added. “It is only your money. Just wait until you get the full bill to try and fix our water fiasco. We have been had!”
Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com
Follow Hart at www.Twitter.com/HeraldJoe
To download a copy of the water study, visit the Herald’s Public Records page at www.capemaycountyherald.com/publicrecords
Cape May – Last week I witnessed a woman helping a man who seemed to be having difficulty getting up in the water. the next thing I saw was she also was injured. My Uber ride was there to take me to the…
