As the new home of NJPIRG's environmental work, Environment New Jersey can be contacted regarding this testimony.
I want to thank the Chairman
for reintroducing this bill—the drought may be long forgotten, but not the
problems that exacerbated it. NJPIRG supports this legislation because it creates
an equitable system to address a public interest—the state of our water infrastructure,
our water supply and our watershed lands.
This funding system that
this bill creates is simple—pay as you go. All water users should help fund
the future stability of our water supply, but in an equitable fashion. The average
homeowner, that overall is a minority percentage of water use, would annually
pay only a dollar or two. An industry that use substantially more water on a
daily and annual basis would pay considerably more, because they are using the
system more.
The spending of the funds
will be done in a transparent process that stresses state and not parochial
priorities—this will not be a slush fund that opponents have feared will
be raided in the latest budget crunch. Twice over the course of a year, the
DEP would submit to the legislature for approval a project priority list and
a financial plan. The DEP would help local governments to address these problems
by issuing low-interest loans and grants to create financial incentives. This
is not a blank check.
The funds will be spent
on a forward-thinking issue—what can we do to alleviate droughts and protect
watershed lands. The public is not thinking about a drought today, but when
it comes, next year or five years from now, we want to be prepared. We want
to make sure that the stories of inoperable pumping stations and unusable water
impoundments are not repeated. We want give towns the financial incentive to
repair their water infrastructure, and we want to work to reduce "unaccounted
for water," that friendly euphemism for leaky pipes.
This bill also starts to
address why our droughts in this state have become more constant and more severe:
sprawl. Uncontrolled development creates a giant sucking sound as it destroys
the cycle of groundwater recharge, while also increasing water supply demand.
This bill would encourage
the acquisition of critical watershed lands as well as the preparation of a
safe yield analysis by the DEP of our water supply. We would suggest that the
critical watershed acquisition be focused on the Highlands region, which is
both critical for our water supply and threatened. And a safe yield analysis
will only have an impact if it is implemented.
Ultimately, the Legislature
and the state need to have a strong water allocation standard that says you
can't build when there is no water. This appetite to build and overextend into
areas with scant water supply will only intensify, and the state has to say
no. That should be part of the answer if we can honestly say that the next drought
will be worse than one before it. This bill, however, will do a huge part in
putting us down that road.
