By Walter Elliott
NEWARK / BELLEVILLE – Some water customers in Newark, Belleville, Bloomfield and Nutley affected by Aug. 9’s Branch Brook Park water main break may not have to boil what water that they have coming from their faucets when you read this.
That prospective advisory, which has been lifted in Nutley by 9 a.m. Wednesday, may be receding in Bloomfield by Aug. 11 and, soon after, in Belleville and Newark.
How soon after, however, remains an open question as of press time. How soon Branch Brook Park Drive North will reopen to traffic, which will take longer to restore, also remains unanswered.
Some 100,000 Newark Water customers in Newark, Belleville, Bloomfield and Nutley – depending on the ward or neighborhood – may still be on bottled water into the weekend.
Those experiencing low or no water pressure in Newark’s North, West, Central and South wards may have been visited by door-to-door city DPW workers delivering gallon bottles of water since Tuesday afternoon. There are separate phone numbers for each affected ward.
All but Newark’s East Ward were affected by the break. While the East Ward is primarily fed by Newark’s Wanaque system, its other wards are served by the city’s Pequannock system.
A Newark official has estimated some 70,000 gallon-bottles of water were being delivered Tuesday afternoon. Contracted water tankers were seen at RWJBarnabas Health Newark Beth Israel Medical Center and in several neighborhoods.
Some merchants, however, have rationed water purchases. Bottled water may still be the rule of the day in Belleville and Bloomfield.
“Local Talk,” for example, saw its DPW staff open a bottled water tent in the Bloomfield and Recreation Plaza’s back parking lot at 11 a.m. Wednesday.
“This is for the residents who are affected by the break,” said a spokesman for Township Administrator Anthony DeZenzo. “I was told by the (Essex) County OEM that Bloomfield should get its water pressure back in 24 hours.”
While Bloomfield gets some of its water from Newark, Belleville gets all of theirs from the city’s Pequannock system.
Belleville is distributing a case of water to residents with ID at its Senior Citizens building at 125 Franklin Ave. Township Engineer Thomas Hertis said he has been working with Newark officials to divert some of its Wanaque water for Belleville.
A Belleville fire engine was seen pumping water from a street hydrant to a detention basin near RWJBarnabas Health Clara Maass Medical Center. While the hospital has been on bottled water Aug. 9-10, the center’s spokeswoman said it remains “fully operational” while monitoring the break repair.
Newark Beth Israel, in Newark’s South Ward, had to postpone elective surgeries and clinical appointments and imposed visitation restrictions on Aug. 9.
Newark’s University Hospital, the area’s only Level 1 Trauma Center, while also waving off scheduled elective surgeries and appointments, activated its emergency command center Tuesday afternoon.
Nutley, as of 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, appears to have missed most of the break’s effects.
The township, deeming that its part of the Newark Pequannock system has “sufficient water pressure,” did not join the three other municipalities in issuing a boil water advisory.
Nutley did ask its Newark-served residents to refrain from watering lawns and all other “unnecessary water use for 24 hours.”
Newark has an estimated 50 homes or 300 customers in Nutley.
Authorities from the Newark Water and Sewer Utility and its contractors were to return to the water main break site here on Branch Brook Park Drive North after 9 a.m. Wednesday.
A minimal crew from the Essex County Sheriff’s Office and the Belleville Fire Department remained overnight yards away from the inundated drive as of 8:15 a.m.
The silver SUV, with only one of its rear wheels still visible, remains in the sinkhole that the break had created just after 8 a.m. Aug. 9.
Although NSWU workers shut off six valves upstream of the break by 2 p.m. Wednesday, some of the 250,000 gal. per minute of water that flows through the broken 72-inch diameter main still cascades into the Second River.
County sheriff’s vehicles have closed the drive at Branch Brook Park West Drive’s merge to the west and at Belleville’s Mill Street and Union Avenue to the east. The park and its interior roads are county property.
Newark Public Works Director Kareem Adeem said that the 140-year-old main had broken just before 8 a.m., eroding the earth around it. The SUV driver told NBC News 4 New York that she was heading west on the drive when she saw “water bubbling up from the street,” and stopped.
The woman driver said she got out of the car before it was almost completely swallowed by the sinkhole beneath it.
The sinkhole and the almost invisible car are some 25 feet east of the 1930s-era former NJTransit Boonton Line railroad overpass. The inactive bridge and the former Erie Railroad Greenwood Lake Division trunk line are to be part of a Montclair-Jersey City rail trail pending its sale by the Norfolk Southern railroad.
Adeem estimated the break to be 42 to 46- inches long.
Public safety, public works and engineering personnel from Newark, Belleville and Essex County promptly gathered on the drive. Initial reports, however, had a second break along Belleville’s Joralemon Street.
Bloomfield meanwhile experienced dropping water pressure and water discoloration in an area from Hoover Avenue north into Joralemon and east through its Franklin Avenue.
Hertis, Adeem, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Belleville Township Manager Anthony Iacono and Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura were at the site Tuesday, joining the initial evaluation and/or holding press conferences. Belleville and Bloomfield mayors Michael Melham and Michael Venezia plus Nutley Mayor Joseph Scarpelli were apprised.
Newark has posted a (973) 733-3274 main number for those who still need bottled water.
