When Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey more than six months ago, flood waters caused sewage to overflow into streets and waterways. Now scientists are studying the long-term damage done by the sewage. One of those individuals is Dr. Alyson Kenward, a senior scientist for Climate Central, an independent organization of scientists and journalists researching and reporting about climate change and its impact. Kenward told NJ Today Managing Editor Mike Schneider that scientists are still learning about the long-term consequences event six months after the storm hit.
Kenward said there were about 11 billion gallons of sewage overflows recorded during and following Hurricane Sandy. Climate Central has an interactive map that shows the size of individual spills relative to one another and what type of spill — fully untreated or partially treated. There is also a map showing people where the spills occurred relative to their location.
Most of the significant overflows occurred at waste water treatment facilities and pumping stations, according to Kenward. “This was because there was such intense coastal flooding caused by Sandy’s record storm surge,” she said, adding that smaller overflows happened at street locations.
The amount of sewage that overflowed from the hurricane was great. Part of the research found that all of the sewage overflow would be more than 41 feet high if it was placed in Central Park, according to Kenward.
While Sandy caused a very large sewage overflow, Kenward said the problem actually occurs fairly regularly on a smaller scale. But the effect of the overflows aren’t clear.
“In terms of how long-term the damage will be from this event, I think we’re still understanding,” Kenward said. “I will say that in New Jersey for example, there were some shellfish beds that were just opened last month, just reopened after Sandy because of concerns that those shellfish were contaminated from these sewage overflows. So that’s going on six months, concern about contamination just off the coast.”
According to Kenward, there are going to be more events like Hurricane Sandy in the future and that’s why she and others are researching the effects. She said the analysis has revealed there is vulnerability to coastal flooding and in waste water treatment plants.
The good news is that steps can be taken to improve the resistance of the facilities and the infrastructure to prevent coastal flooding, according to Kenward. After Sandy, she said there has been renewed interest and financial resources to get that done.
“The facilities that we talked to are absolutely aware of the types of improvement and upgrades that they should be making to become more resilient, but it’s a resource issue,” Kenward said. “But following Sandy, it looks as though there’s some good resources being made available to help people improve the infrastructure.”