The drinking water for New Jersey’s capital went largely untested for more than a year, utility says

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The drinking water in New Jersey’s capital city and some surrounding communities went largely untested for more than a year, the utility belatedly told roughly 200,000 affected customers, noting that it fired a worker who falsified the relevant reports.

Trenton Water Works said in a letter to customers last week that it became aware of the problem a year ago and that an investigation determined that the water sample collector fudged reports meant to monitor for disinfection byproducts, E. Coli and other things from October 2022 through last December. A majority of the water samples taken by the utility during that time were deemed to be invalid, it said.

The worker, who wasn’t named in the utility’s letter and who hasn’t been charged, was put on leave and then fired.

The utility said the water is safe now and that customers don’t need to take any action.

Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora called the falsification of reports “inexcusable.” He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the matter was referred to state environmental officials, who passed it along to the state attorney general’s office.

“We’re trying to do everything we can to prosecute the bad guy,” he said.

He added that the utility has more than 100 employees.

“One of them did something extremely bad we’re extremely upset, and it’s embarrassing. At the same time, there were other water samples taken not indicating any sounding of alarms.”

Asked why it took a year to tell the public about the false reports, the mayor said the city followed state Department of Environmental Protection regulations.

“The notice itself is required by DEP,” he said. “But there was no indication of an imminent threat.”

In response to what happened, the utility said it has strengthened supervision of sample collectors and put additional procedures in place to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act. That includes installing GPS tracking devices on fleet vehicles for real-time supervision, it said.