Montclair, Glen Ridge rescind water emergencies as service fully restored
Montclair Mayor Sean Spiller announced on Friday afternoon that broken water main in Nutley has been fully restored and the town is no longer under a state of emergency prohibiting residents from non-essential water use.
The state of emergency was called on Saturday, a few days after the rupture in the 100-year-old, 6-foot diameter pipe managed by North JerseyDistrict Water Supply.
Glen Ridge, where non-essential water usage such as the watering of laws and washing of cars was also prohibited, also announced Friday that the water emergency was lifted.
Bloomfield was also affected, and unlike Montclair and Glen Ridge, which have the infrastructure to pump in water from other towns, was under a "boil water advisory." That advisory was lifted Monday evening.
Locating and fixing the leak, then re-pressurizing the system, took more than a week. A big hurdle was discerning which of the three lines running through the area was broken through the large volume of water, said Bill Maer of the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission.
He said the leak was caused by a bonnet on the valve in a drainage manhole blowing off, something “not abnormal for a pipe that’s 100 years old.”
To keep water flowing to residents, Montclair initially pumped water from Verona and Cedar Grove using firetrucks hooked up to hydrants. When water pressure in those towns began to drop, and it became clear that water would soon run out for Montclair residents, crews from the town’s Department of Public Works began working round the clock laying temporary pipes that run from the main pumping station at Grove Street and Mount Hebron Road to Clifton to connect to the Passaic Valley Water system.
“It was a massive, massive job,” Spiller said. “I shudder to think of the bill.”
The costs include the many contractors, pipe itself, road work, engineers, overtime for police to direct traffic and firefighters to pump water from hydrants into the system, he said.
Gov. Phil Murphy authorized the emergency work with state agencies like the Department of Environmental Protection and Office of Emergency Management.
Montclair Councilor Peter Yacobellis said Montclair “has been investing in its water infrastructure for years and is in really good shape. But what we can’t affect is water coming in from other places.”
The broken pipe had nothing to do with Montclair, he said: “This isn’t our fault. We don’t know what happened, but it seems somebody didn’t do their job in terms of inspecting.”
Yacobellis worries that intense development in North Jersey in the last 10 years could be putting a strain on the region’s water infrastructure.
“There needs to be an honest conversation about capacity,” he said.
Yacobellis said he hopes that some of the $1.2 billion in new infrastructure funds will go toward maintenance and repair of New Jersey’s aging water infrastructure.
He would like to see Montclair activate a well dug a few years ago near Llewelyn Road, which would supplement the town’s water supply by about 20%.
And he said it’s important to codify everything that happened this time around so there’s a manual of sorts for “when — not if — this happens again.”
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Montclair, Glen Ridge NJ lift water emergencies, service back
