As part of its capital improvement program, Trenton Water Works has installed an automatic flushing assembly in Hopewell Township on Pennington and Denow Roads, at a dead-end section of its distribution system.
“The flushing assembly is one of 144 that we have installed systemwide for $1.7 million to strengthen the management of our 683-mile distribution system,” said Sean Semple, director of the city’s Department of Water and Sewer, which operates Trenton Water Works, one of the oldest and largest public water systems in the United States. “We continue to evaluate areas of our system to install these water-industry-standard devices to maintain high water quality.”
The flushing assembly will operate automatically overnight for approximately one hour to discharge water from a Hopewell Township section of the water utility’s sprawling distribution system to keep it fresh. The $15,000 upgrade will improve water quality and system reliability and maintain adequate hydraulics.
The Hopewell Township flushing assembly installation is part of TWW’s comprehensive work to maintain high water quality systemwide. It is an integral part of a multi-year capital improvement program that includes replacing, cleaning, and lining water mains, building decentralized storage tanks, designing and building a new central pumping station, and removing lead infrastructure from the water system and at private homes through its free and mandatory Lead Service Line Replacement Program.
Using flushing assemblies to flush the distribution system of aged water is a key component of the TWW’s plan to reduce the concentration of disinfection byproducts. DBPs are contaminants that form when chlorine interacts with organic materials in raw water sources such as rivers, lakes, and streams.
TWW tests for DBPs monthly at nine sites in its system, including Hopewell Township. The sampling site at 800 Denow Road recently exceeded the Locational Running Annual Average limit of 80 for Total Trihalomethanes, a type of disinfection byproduct, with an average of 80.7. To calculate the LRAA, TWW averages sample results from its nine DBP testing sites taken over the previous 12 months.
Notably, the other eight test sites in TWW’s service area are within Safe Drinking Water Act regulations for DBPs, and water quality is high, supported by TWW’s hourly water testing at its water filtration plant on Route 29 South in Trenton and other data reported to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
“Our fundamental mission is to provide safe, reliable, high-quality water services and fire suppression to our customers and service-area residents and meet or exceed Safe Drinking Water Act standards,” added Semple. “We continue to execute the requisite steps necessary to maintain this public health goal.”
“We are grateful to Trenton Water Works for installing this flusher in Hopewell Township, which I hope will mitigate the DBP issues we have been seeing. We look forward to continuing to work with TWW on this and its other operations and capital projects,” said Courtney Peters-Manning, mayor of Hopewell Township.
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