Water Pollution Analysis in New Jersey, Employing the Cutting Edge Analytical Technology of 1876.

As this article is being written the ground outside is covered with snow and the forecast calls for several days of freezing temperatures. By the time it appears in the Indicator, the snow will most likely be melted and much of the water will be stored in one of the many reservoirs in New Jersey.

New Jersey has always depended on surface water for much of its potable water supplies, and for almost 300 years, much of its power as well. The New Jersey DEP has recently published a map identifying over 140 mill ponds and water canals that powered all types of mills.

It is therefore not surprising that a significant portions of the Annual Report of the New Jersey State Geologist feature detailed discussions of water resources. The report for 1876 provides us with valuable insights into the uses of surface water and what was known about pure water and public health. Sadly, the names of the individual scientists who worked on the report have not been recorded.

It had been known for centuries that there was a link between pure water and good health. But it was not until the pioneering epidemiological work of Dr. John Snow of London (1813-1858) that nature of the link was explored methodically. The first edition of his groundbreaking On the Mode of the Communication of Cholera, was published in 1849 and an expanded edition came out in 1855. By carefully mapping mortality and water supply, Snow became the first scientist to prove that contaminated water could spread disease. This was dramatically demonstrated during his study of two cholera outbreaks in London during 1854 and 1857. The 1854 outbreak was famous because Snow was able to trace its source back to a single contaminated well on Broad Street. According to legend, Dr. Snow was able to stop the outbreak by the simple expedient of removing the handle from the pump. Historians have recently come to doubt that the outbreak was stopped so easily, but in the public mind (and in that of many historians of science) the Broad Street pump handle marked the beginning of modern public health measures.

Dr. Snow did not have the advantage of the Germ Theory of Disease. Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) would not publish his own pioneering work, Germ Theory and Its Applications to Medicine and Surgery until 1878. There was at the time however, a growing body of evidence that illnesses could be caused by what Pasteur referred to as the specific poisons of the so-called zymotic diseases. Pasteur thought that these poisons consisted of organized and living organic matter and a growing body of evidence convinced many scientists that water was the medium through which these diseases were propagated.

Thus the 1876 New Jersey Geological Survey report came out at time when the links between water supply and health were clear but the bacterial mechanisms behind the linkage were just beginning to be understood. What is fascinating about this report is how the Geological Survey scientists measured the disease-causing potential of a water supply without actually knowing exactly how diseases were transmitted.

In the summer of 1876 a committee consisting of the mayors of Newark, Jersey City, Hoboken, Bayonne, Orange, Bloomfield, and Montclair began collecting data on water usage and requested the aid of the State Geologist in identifying possible sources of supply. At the time, northern New Jersey had a population density of 1,118 persons per square mile. (For comparison, Newark today has a population density of 11,000 per square mile and Montclair has 6,056 persons per square mile.)

Twenty-five years earlier, Jersey City selected a site on the Passaic near the present day city of Kearny for its municipal water intake. At the time, the Passaic was described as a pleasant and limpid stream. But by 1874 it was recognized potable water was no longer obtainable from the river anywhere below the city of Paterson. The water leaving that city was described as being as dark as beer and was said to contain the sewage of 50,000 persons, oil, coal tar, and the waste chemicals from dye works, textile mills, hat factories, and paper mills. Newark was also drawing its municipal water from an intake on the same stretch of the Passaic. City officials noted that recently dredged navigation channels allowed both salt water and sewage from Newark to move farther upstream than they formerly did.

As part of the search for an alternative source of supply, chemists working for the state Geological Survey analyzed 23 water samples in July and August of 1876. The samples were drawn from wells in Newark, Jersey City, Elizabeth, Camden, New Brunswick; from the upper Passaic River, the Rockaway, Ramapo, Ringwood, and Pequannock Rivers; and the Morris Canal at Bloomfield.

Eight analytical results were reported for each sample, solid matter (dried at 212 f and ash after burning), ammonia (free and albuminoid), chlorine, sulfuric acid, lime and magnesium. Each result was reported at impurities in 1,000,000 parts of water or as we would call it, ppm.

The growing population fostered a re-interpretation of the chemical analysis results. For most of the 1800s water analysis focused on the mineral content of the sample and the economic consequences. Lime and magnesium were measures of water hardness, sulfuric acid was thought non-hazardous to humans but harmful to boilers and manufacturing processes. In terms of public health however, scientists now understood that it made no real difference if water was hard or soft so long as it was otherwise pure.

The water quality chemists of 1876 were becoming more interested in the ammonia and chloride content. It was known that decaying animal and vegetable materials in water putrified and decomposed. During the process of decomposition a number of different products might result but all of the nitrogen would ultimately be converted to either ammonia (anaerobic conditions) or nitric acid (aerobic conditions). Albuminoid ammonia was defined as those nitrogen-containing substances that had not yet completely decomposed into free ammonia.

The authors of the report clearly understood that both free ammonia and nitric acid originated with nitrogenous organic matter. But it is not clear if they understood that it would remain as ammonia under anaerobic conditions and be converted to nitric acid under aerobic conditions. From fertilizer manufacturing and composting, they would have been very familiar with the conversion of ammonia to nitrates but could not entirely explain the mechanism without knowing about bacterial action. (The bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrate are strictly aerobic and cannot survive in low oxygen environments. This is why a poorly aerated compost pile smells strongly of ammonia.)

The authors of the report cite the authority of W.H. Corfield, when they recommended rejecting any water with more than 1 ppm of ammonia as a possible source for public consumption. Corfield was a professor at University College London, and one of the authors of the 1874 book, A Manual of Public Health.

Corfield and his fellow authors believed that the decomposing organic matter present in surface waters had its source in foul air. They explained that waters containing decomposing plant matter were not linked to intestinal illness. But because marshes were the source of such water, and marshes were also the source of yellow fever, this water should still be avoided. They wrote that waters contaminated with ammonia from animal matter contained poisons that could cause diarrhea, and in some cases, cholera, enteric fever, or, dysentery. Corfield correctly identified sewage as both a source of nitrogen and enteric diseases.

Thus in the absence of bacterial testing, chemists had found what seemed to be a reliable proxy measurement for sewage contamination. None of the New Jersey waters tested in 1876 had more than 0.133 ppm free ammonia and most contained less than 0.1 ppm. Albuminoid ammonia values ranged from a low of 0.112 ppm (Hackettstown) to 0.325 ppm (Jersey City.) The USEPA does not currently regulate the levels of ammonia in drinking water but for comparison, surface waters in the United States today have an average concentration of about 0.18 ppm.

The chemists of the Geological Survey used a method published by the English chemist James Alfred Wanklyn of the London Institution. His method called for half of liter of water to be distilled in a retort connected to a Liebig condenser. The free ammonia was distilled off and its quantity determined by reaction with Nesslers reagent (mercuric iodide -potassium iodide solution.) To determine the amount of albuminoid ammonia, a strongly alkaline solution of potassium permanganate was added to the water remaining in the retort. This converted the organic nitrogen to ammonia and the solution was re-distilled. Wanklyn believed that the rate of this reaction could be used to determine the source of the nitrogen. If the reaction went quickly, the ammonia had an animal origin. Slower reactions indicated a vegetable origin.

The great weakness of the Wanklyn test was the assumption that the potassium permanganate reaction would always go to completion. Erratic results were often obtained under slightly different experimental conditions. The Geological Survey chemists attempted to validate their process by analyzing known amounts of urea. Recoveries were very low. They knew their results for organic nitrogen were going to be unreliable but no alternative method was available to them.

Chlorine (sic) was also recognized as a proxy marker for sewage contamination as well as what we might refer to today as non point source pollution. The Geological Survey report noted that while chlorine itself was non-hazardous, it was often found in excrement and elevated levels could indicate sewage contamination. The authors of the report observed that very little chlorine was present in mountain streams, higher levels were found in cultivated areas, and the highest levels were found in rivers where towns and cities are located.

It is not entirely clear if the authors meant the chloride ion when they wrote about chlorine concentrations. They did discuss chlorine as a constituent of ordinary salt so it is likely that this is what they meant.

At that time the analysis of chloride by titration with silver nitrate was well established although journals from the period do not mention any sort of indicator being available to help identify the endpoint.

One of the problems addressed in the report was determining whether the impurities reported in the Newark municipal water supply were from sewage or simply salt water brought northwards on the incoming tide. Newark had its water intake on the west bank of the river in the town of Belleville, located a few miles north of the city.

The authors of the report began by noting at the mineral content of at the water intake was four times greater than found farther upstream. They began by looking up the chemical constituents of both seawater and urine in the literature. The ratios of chlorine to sulfuric acid were 8.5 and 3.5 in seawater and urine respectively. Samples taken from the lower Passaic at different tidal stages were analyzed for chlorine and sulfuric acid. The resulting ratios convinced the authors that the Passaic was clearly contaminated by sewage. This conclusion was then verified by field observation.

For all of the emphasis they placed on detecting sewage contamination and then avoiding it, the authors of the report made a rather surprising statement:

Water contaminated with filth and sewage, however offensive it may be, is not always, or even generally poisonous.

They attributed illnesses caused by drinking this water to the decomposition of organic matter producing new and unwholesome substances. These substances were the direct cause of typhoid, cholera, and other diseases.

Although decomposition seemed to occur fastest in the summer months, the authors noted that only exposure to air and oxidation destroys the poisons. Freezing the water was not sufficient to purify it.

The report gives several examples of outbreaks associated with exposure to impure water. An 1863 outbreak of intestinal illness in Camden, New Jersey, was traced to the Kensington district of Philadelphia. Commuters and other visitors to the district were exposed to the disease and brought it back to New Jersey. Kensington took its water from the Delaware River at a point where pollution from numerous privies, sinks, and culverts was present in the river.

In December of 1874 typhoid broke out at St. Mary Hall, a school for girls, in Burlington, New Jersey. Eighty cases were reported and five deaths resulted. The well supplying water to the school was located next to a cesspool. When cracks developed in the brick and mortar lining of the cesspool, sewage leaked into the drinking water supply. Repairing the crack halted the outbreak. The teachers and staff, who drank mostly coffee or tea, were not affected.

The state of medical knowledge in the 1870s was summed up by Dr. A. Hagler of Basel, Switzerland. He made the following conclusions from his studies of disease outbreaks in rural communities:

1. Water supplies that have received the dejections from persons affected with typhoid will cause the disease only in those persons who drink or cook with the water.

2. Contaminated water will still be capable of spreading disease even after filtration.

3. Spring water that has been polluted by excrement before seeping into the earth, will still not be safe for human use if has visible turbidity after returning to the surface.

4. Water polluted with normal, as opposed to infected, excrementitious material will be safe for human consumption.

(Yeah, right, uck!)

Hagler, unlike the authors from the New Jersey Geological Survey, strongly suspected that the poison that caused typhoid was almost certainly organized and living. He noted that it was likely to resist oxidation much longer than the non-living organic matters with which it was associated.

So where did that leave the towns of northern New Jersey?

We have seen that scientists were able to use ammonia and chlorine concentrations to determine if water had been contaminated by sewage. Even though the germ theory of disease was still not fully developed, the sewage-choked Passaic River was clearly no longer an acceptable source of potable water.

The Geological Survey recommended the mountainous region in the upper Passaic River basin as the new source of domestic water. They noted that in the 750 square miles of the upper basin the human population was between 50,000 and 60,000 and there were no areas of dense settlement.

To confirm this conclusion, they consulted John Cooke, president of the Danforth Locomotive Works and Machine Company in Paterson. Cooke was asked about the quality of water in the upper Passaic River that was used by both the locomotive works and for domestic use by many of its employees. Cooke replied to the inquiry by assuring the Geological Survey that when used in boilers it did not produce scale and seemed to be free of scale-causing minerals. The dyers and bleachers of Paterson preferred using the river water, especially the silk dyers. Cooke also assured them that the Ivanhoe Paper Mill used the water in the manufacture of all but their finest papers.

In the initial round of testing, the chemists of the Geological Survey did test a number of samples from the upper Passaic River and its major tributaries. It may not be clear to the modern reader, why they then asked a locomotive builder for an endorsement instead of obtaining a second set of samples and performing additional analysis.

At the time however, it was common for people who were successful businessmen and recognized community leaders to be consulted on a wide range of topics. Perhaps assurance from John Cooke was exactly what was needed to convince elected officials that the scientists had made the right recommendation. It makes as much sense as having the actress Daryl Hannah endorse the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society or Leonardo DiCaprio as a spokesman against global warming.

As I write the last lines of this article, the coffee cup at my elbow is filled with coffee made with water from the New Jersey Highlands. The decision to take water from this region has insured the people of northern New Jersey a reliable source of clean water for over a century.

Today there are a total of 13 reservoirs in northern New Jersey with a combined storage capacity of 76.2 billion gallons (BG). They are owned and operated by four agencies, United Water of New Jersey (4 reservoirs, 13.9 BG), North Jersey District Water Supply Commission (2 reservoirs, 36.6 BG), Jersey City Water Department (2 reservoirs, 11.4 BG), and the Newark Water Department (5 reservoirs, 14.4 BG). In addition, there are two pumping stations on the Pompton and Ramapo rivers that the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission uses to refill their reservoirs.

Not a bad result when you consider our modern water supply resulted from a decision made by people who really did not completely understand what they were talking about!