Credit: (Jim Wright/The Nature Conservancy)

In New Jersey’s Highlands region, stretching like a sash through 88 municipalities from Bergen County down to Hunterdon, it seems like every success is met with a new challenge impacting the Delaware River and its precious watershed.

For example, a massive warehouse development was slated in 2022 to cover 575 acres of farmland in White Township, just across the road from the Delaware. Its heavy truck traffic and 2.8 million square feet of buildings and asphalt would have increased stormwater runoff, leading to potential flooding problems and sending oil, road salts and other pollutants into the river.

The state Agriculture Development Committee ultimately agreed to buy and preserve the land, now known as Buckhorn Creek Farm, closing on the sale in May 2024. Yet keeping the land open, and the river clean, came at a high price — $27 million, the highest per-acre price ever paid by the state for farmland.

Two years ago, NJ Spotlight News in its special project “Water’s Edge” highlighted the Highlands’ importance to the watershed and its vast network of tributaries that provide drinking water to millions. This week, as we revisit some Highlands locations for signs of progress, the warehouse land swap is just one example in the region of the pressures that continue from development and other threats.

Six months after the warehouse exchange and 10 miles away in Warren County, an investigation escalated into significant water contamination in a section of Washington Township along the Musconetcong River, which meanders 46 miles through the Highlands before emptying into the Delaware River.

Join the conversationJoin NJ Spotlight News for a virtual conversation to close out our “Water’s Edge” special series, looking at the threats and opportunities facing the Delaware River Watershed and its natural resources.

Managing editor John McAlpin will lead the hour-long discussion among journalists who have reported on the watershed’s challenges from different locations across New Jersey.

The virtual conversation will take place on Monday, June 30 at 12 p.m.

‘Forever chemicals’

The levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” found at one Washington Township location appeared to be the highest ever recorded in New Jersey: 18,997 parts per trillion, more than 1,000 times greater than the maximum levels set by the state for the most common PFAS, measured in June 2023.

Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency sampled water in the area known as the Route 31 Sludge Disposal Site and now are providing free bottled water to about 180 homes where levels of PFAS contamination exceed federal maximum contaminant levels.

Credit: (Colleen O’Dea/NJ Spotlight News)

It is still unknown whether the PFAS have leached into the Musconetcong, considered one of the best trout fishing waters in the state, with both wild and stocked rainbow, brook and brown trout. Working with officials from the EPA, Delaware River Basin Commission and New Jersey Fish and Wildlife, members of the Musconetcong Watershed Association were in the river earlier this week sampling the water for contamination.

‘What we’ve been able to accomplish is nowhere near what we need to accomplish, and we have nowhere near the resources to be able to do that.’ — Ben Spinelli, executive director, New Jersey Highlands Council

“By combining surface water sampling with fish tissue analysis, the project aims to better understand the scope of PFAS pollution in the watershed,” said Christa Reeves, the association’s interim executive director, adding that the association has also tested home wells that are outside the EPA focus area.

To alleviate the contamination, the New Jersey Highlands Council last week approved the extension of a water main in Washington Township by New Jersey American Water Company to 142 properties whose wells are contaminated with PFAS. The move comes even though that area is considered a conservation zone that is environmentally restricted and where the expansion of water service normally would not be allowed.

“You’ve got contamination levels that are the highest that have been recorded in the state,” said Ben Spinelli, executive director of the regional agency. “We do know that the groundwater has been impacted and who knows what the long-term consequences of the chemicals are. It’s troubling.”

Laws and limits

Threats to the region and its part of the watershed are not new. In 2004, lawmakers created the New Jersey Highlands Council to protect the region’s water quality and quantity because the Highlands provides some or all the drinking water for some 7 million people. It also defined the region, designating roughly half the 860,000 acres as a preservation area, where the state Department of Environmental Protection set limits on development near waterways, on steep slopes, in forests and on farmland. The remaining half of the Highlands is covered by rules set in the Highlands regional master plan adopted in 2008, but only for those municipalities that agree to follow the plan.

Although the council celebrated the law’s 20th anniversary last year, it continues to draw at least trepidation, and in some cases outright hostility, among landowners and public officials. Only half of the municipalities have agreed to follow the master plan for at least part of their land, though over the last six months, 15 communities have at least started the conformance process. That’s at least partly due to the potential reduction in the state’s separate affordable housing obligation for any conforming town, due to the master plan’s protections for certain types of lands, including wetlands and forests.

Council staff developed a mapping tool that overlays all the zones the master plan created and resource constraints throughout the region, allowing municipal officials to see what parcels could be developable. Only municipalities that agree to follow the master plan are able to use the build-out tool to lower their affordable housing obligations. In the case of Byram in Sussex County, for example, the state Department of Community Affairs estimated the township needs to zone for 115 new low-cost homes. But Byram reduced that number to two in its housing plan filed with the state, because an analysis that factored in the Highlands restrictions found only one parcel in the township is in a sewered area and developable.

Curbing suburbanization

“We took what I think was a very logical and sound approach to how to evaluate the capacity of the region,” said Spinelli one of the original members of the Highlands Council. “People in the Highlands need affordable places to live … You want the right number built in the right place in the right matter, and that was our approach.”

Over the last two decades, he said, the Highlands restrictions have been largely successful in preserving the character and the clean water of the region, which sends about 860 million gallons of water a day to homes and businesses in other parts of the state.

“For the most part, the rapid suburbanization of the region has been significantly slowed,” Spinelli said. “Not eliminated. Obviously, the last house wasn’t built, but the alarming rate that development was taking place has certainly been addressed. Water still coming out of the region still substantially looks like it did twenty years ago, which was the real purpose of the Highlands [law].”

Between 2019 and 2022, the most recent year for which data was available, the number of acres preserved in the Highlands was about four times greater than the number developed, with 5,538 acres protected compared to 1,382 developed.

Lakes under pressure

Still surface waters in the region continue to face other threats. The condition of lakes is one concern.

Lakes in the Highlands that drain into the Delaware River have been having fewer large-scale harmful algal blooms (HABs) than in many years. Lake Hopatcong, the source of the Musconetcong River, was closed for part of the summer of 2019 due to an especially large bloom.

But the problem remains a stubborn one to solve. Leaking septic tanks and poor stormwater management systems can carry human and animal waste, fertilizer and other chemicals into open waters, causing algae and cyanobacteria normally found in lakes to grow out of control and make the water appear green. These can be exacerbated by high temperatures and excessive rainfall. High algal counts can make the water toxic to people and animals who drink it or spend time in it.

The DEP has decided to ‘retire’ Spruce Run Recreation Area in Hunterdon County as a lake for swimming, a spokesman said.

Due to continuing HABs at Spruce Run Reservoir, which provides water to more than 1.5 million people in Central Jersey and has been a popular spot for swimming and boating, the DEP has decided to “retire” Spruce Run Recreation Area in Hunterdon County as a lake for swimming, a spokesman said. The state park service plans to create a recreational redevelopment plan for the area.

Credit: (Colleen O’Dea/NJ Spotlight News)

“While Spruce Run is an integral part of water supply in the Central Region, it is over 35 miles upstream of the nearest drinking water intake, making impact unlikely” to the drinking water supply, said DEP spokesman Vincent Grassi.

Still, DEP’s most recent annual report on algal blooms, released in May of 2024, found that while Lake Hopatcong and several other locations in the Highlands had algal blooms in 2023, none of those persisted into the winter. Statewide, the number of harmful algal blooms declined slightly from 2022 to 2023, though was still higher than in 2017, when the DEP implemented a statewide response strategy.

Trying to protect the Musconetcong River

Other challenges facing the waters of the 158-square mile Musconetcong River watershed are road salt and other pollution sources.

More than 60% of the Musconetcong has been designated a National Wild and Scenic River, which provides it with some protections meant to safeguard its natural character and keep it free-flowing. Reeves of the Musconetcong Watershed Association said its water quality is considered good overall in most sections. To assess the river, association members measure temperature, dissolved oxygen, acidity and nitrate levels and collect creatures that live in the river bottom at several locations four times a year.

Credit: (Colleen O’Dea/NJ Spotlight News)

But the river’s conductivity level — the amount of electricity that can travel in water — has more than doubled over the last half-century, and after storms, the levels can spike even higher. Officials blame that on the overuse of salt during snowstorms. Salt both washes into the river directly and gets into the soil from where it leaches into the river over time. Studies have shown that insects, which trout and other fish eat, and some fish can die from chronic levels or major spikes in chloride.

“Nitrogen and phosphorus levels are generally within expected seasonal ranges, but localized spikes, particularly downstream of developed or agricultural areas, suggest ongoing inputs from runoff and septic systems,” said Reeves of the Musconetcong Watershed Association.

The association is in the midst of its fourth year of monitoring road salts at a host of locations throughout the area and has found “clear signs” of impacts on local streams, particularly following winter storms, she said.

“Data collected at several sites, before and after storm events, revealed spikes in both conductivity and chloride levels following snow and ice treatments,” Reeves continued. “This all underscores the need to balance how and when salt is applied and the use of other techniques to serve both public safety and human and ecological health.

“It is well known that these salts infiltrate into groundwater and people’s personal wells and can have serious health impacts, especially those with heart problems,” she said.

There is more to be accomplished to protect the region and its watershed, say advocates. For example, the Musconetcong Watershed Association planted more than 1,100 trees this spring in several sections of the middle and lower watershed, aimed at restoring the riparian buffers, which help regulate the water temperature and improve habitat resilience.

The association is also working with Hunterdon County through a grant from the Highlands Council to examine other water quality issues and potential solutions.

But there are also constraints due to a lack of funding. The Highlands Council’s current budget is about $3.5 million, with a potential cut to $3.3 million recommended by Gov. Phil Murphy for the coming fiscal year, which starts July 1.

Said Spinelli, “What we’ve been able to accomplish is nowhere near what we need to accomplish, and we have nowhere near the resources to be able to do that.”

— Graphic by Colleen O’Dea