NORTH JERSEY GREEN: Drinking water, forests and answers beneath your feet

By Claire Whitcomb for Madison Eagle

The answer to the question “where does your drinking water come from?” is right beneath your feet.

If you’re one of the 58,000 residents of Madison, Chatham Borough, Florham Park or East Hanover, you get your water from the Buried Valley Aquifer.

Every last drop.

The water that lands in your glass is pumped up from wells that have been drilled some 150 feet deep. It comes from the Buried Valley Aquifer (BVA), a network of buried glacial valleys that extends across parts of Morris, Essex, Somerset and Union Counties. The BVA is a major source of drinking water for a total of 31 towns.

Next question: If your tap is speedy, how fast is recharge?

The answer is: slow. Water needs to percolate back down through soil, rock and glacial debris.

In 1890, when Madison’s first artesian wells were dug, water bubbled out of the ground. The town’s current wells have seen water levels drop roughly 20 to 25 feet from the late 1950s and 60s to the present.

While this news is not yet troubling, the aquifer faces two issues that few imagined in 1957.

New Jersey is increasingly paved over. It has more urban terrain than forests, according to a 2015 study by Rowan and Rutgers universities.

Rainfall is fast and furious. Climate change has caused the atmosphere to hold seven percent more water with each degree Celsius of warming.

Even “ordinary” storms now cause water to rush across lawns (which are poor aquifer conduits) and race down streets into stormwater pipes. Instead of being purified by gravel and sand, the water picks up pollutants from asphalt, fertilizer and other materials as it heads towards rivers such as the Whippany and the Passaic.

Water that enters the stormwater system is lost to the aquifer.

Fortunately, citizens can take actions in their yards. They can direct gutters away from the street toward vegetated areas. They can shrink lawns—and plant trees.

Trees, particularly mature trees, combat runoff by slowing rainfall with their canopies. Their interlocking root systems absorb water and, in forested areas, leafy twiggy debris acts as a literal sponge.

It’s no surprise that three of Madison’s most important aquifer and groundwater recharge zones—Summerhill Park, the Madison Recreation Complex, and the Drew University Forest—are all heavily forested.

After Hurricane Ida, Dr. Sara Webb, a Drew University professor emeritus who has led a 14-year restoration of the Forest, went out to see if flooding occurred. It did not. The Forest’s leafy floor and glacial topography held rainwater in place for recharge. Dr. Webb captured the results on a video that can be seen on www.friendsofthedrewforest.com/photosvideo.

Trees and, more importantly, forests, purify drinking water. According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the 53-acre Drew Forest purifies 71.5 million gallons annually (based on 48” average annual rainfall). This ecosystem service is valued at $1.5 million per year.

Preserving the Drew Forest

The Drew Forest’s importance to the aquifer is one reason why six towns have passed resolutions supporting a market-value conservation sale that would preserve the Forest for public and educational use. The towns are Madison, Chatham Borough, Chatham Township, Parsippany, Morris Township and Morristown.

Resolutions of support have also been passed by nine state environmental groups including Sierra Club of New Jersey, the Great Swamp Watershed Association and the Whippany Watershed Action Committee.

There is ample precedent for preserving environmentally-important lands with public and private funding.

In 2016, the 130-acre Giralda Farms Preserve was purchased from a developer and is now a Morris County Park.

In the 1990s, a 25-acre portion of the Loantaka Moraine, a critical aquifer recharge area near the Drew Forest, was purchased from a developer by Morris County to become part of a county park.

In 1960, private citizens helped create the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. Some 2600 acres were purchased and donated to the government to help secure federal protection.

A conservation sale of the Drew Forest is a win-win solution. Drew would receive needed funds, the Forest would be preserved and an important source of clean water would be safeguarded.

Protecting our water supply is critical. We need to act now, because aquifer recharge happens slowly—and development happens quickly.