Clean drinking water is a luxury that unfortunately many people don’t have access to. Contamination of natural local aquifers can pose a risk to human health and monitoring such contamination serves to warn locals of such risk and provide means by which governments are made accountable to an issue of public health. Fortunately in Madison there is clean fresh drinking water available to the public due to the buried valley aquifer system; which supplies much of the drinking water for northern NJ. The Madison Water Department is responsible for ensuring the safety of drinking water, of which the annual water quality report for 2023 can be found here.
Surficial aquifers are geologic sources of groundwater often extracted for urban use and are highly susceptible to environmental pollutants. Data collected by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection classifies these aquifers as either Lake bottom Sediment, Morainic Deposits, Sand and Gravel, or Till. The Known Contaminated Sites of New Jersey List (KCSLNJ) has been added from the NJDEP showing up to date locations where soil and groundwater contamination have been shown to be at an unsafe level.
Within Madison, there are 22 sites classified as contaminated found throughout many of the surficial aquifers of Madison. Many of these sites of contamination are located at the heart of the urban/residential section of Madison Borough.
More specifically, 13 of the 22 contaminated sites fall within 1 kilometer by Madison Station. There are 4 contaminated sites spread across the sand and gravel aquifer on the western side of the town and 1 site near Madison High school. There are 6 contaminated sites in the upper morainic deposit aquifer and a total of 11 sites across both sections of till. No contaminated sites exist for the lake bottom sediment aquifer on the eastern side of town.
Being aware of how local contamination sites align with sources of groundwater can be a very important step in taking control of potential environmental hazards that could eventually affect health and safety. Information like those provided by the NJDEP allow people in more vulnerable areas and situations to make better informed decisions related to their drinking water.
Fortunately, the Borough of Madison maintains in their most recent water quality report that all drinking water and tap water used in the town come from wells that are not influenced by surficial water and meet all safety standards of the state of NJ found here. However, access to clean bottled water in places that do not meet safety standards still remains an issue to be addressed.
The map above utilizes two key data layers: Surficial Aquifers in New Jersey and Known Contaminated Site List for New Jersey. Both of these were published on ArcGIS online by the NJ Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of GIS. The NJDEP is the government agency in New Jersey responsible for managing the state’s natural resources and addressing issues related to pollution.
The information pertaining to surficial aquifers was compiled using various published and unpublished geologic maps from 1987 to 1993. With the GIS data layer being updated most recently on November 8th 2021.
The information from the KCSLNJ is updated daily as a result of its significance to public health but does not specify the remedial activity of each contamination site, meaning the level to which the site has been cleaned is variable.
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