The data shows that water utilities in the Garden State have racked up at least 226 contamination violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act since Flint became synonymous with tainted tap water and put other water systems under a spotlight.
The state’s largest city, Newark, acknowledged last month that the treatment program it was deploying to stop lead from leaching into drinking water in the city was "no longer effective," according to NJ.com.
But the health-based violations elsewhere in the state mostly swirl around excessive levels of bacteria or, ironically, inordinate amounts of disinfectants meant to cleanse the water of biological contaminants.
“Most of the violations that you see are coliform testing and disinfection byproducts," said Anthony Matarazzo, director of water quality for New Jersey American Water, the state’s largest private provider.
Explore the map below to see which water utilities were cited for delivering tainted water.
Three months later the system was considered "compliant" again with the arsenic rule.
The Safe Drinking Water Act is a federal law passed in 1974 that sets standards on drinking water supplies in America.
EPA data shows there have been nearly 34,000 contamination violations of the SDWA — impacting the water delivered to 1 in 8 Americans — across the country since April 2014, when the city of Flint started drawing water from the Flint River.
Another 3,800 major monitoring violations of the SDWA were rolled up in New Jersey since Flint, meaning that these utilities were failing to properly test for dangerous manmade and naturally occurring chemicals or to document those procedures.
"If you don’t do that not only are you going to fall off meeting your current goals but you’ll be less able to meet new challenges when you do identify them.” Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748, razimmer@app.com, @russzimmer

Manager Ryan Schaap tells the Eastern New Mexico News that the cows at Highland Dairy need to be milked but nobody will buy their wares, imperiling the dairy and its 40 employees.
Chemicals associated with firefighting foam once used at Cannon Air Force Base near Clovis have been detected in groundwater on and near the military installation, prompting requests by state officials for more tests and a study to determine the extent of the toxic plume.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, have been detected in some off-base wells.
Schaap’s business is among those affected.
He said water at the dairy and farm were found to be 35 and 200 times the EPA limit, respectively.
Water at his parents’ home tested 10 times the limit.
A scientist with the New Mexico Environment Department explained at a recent town hall in Clovis that the chemicals can accumulate, making their way from water into crops, livestock and other products.
A standard for those chemicals’ hazards in food and animals hasn’t been established in the same way it has for drinking water, and officials have said more research is needed.
"Right now what’s in front of us is dealing with drinking water here at Cannon Air Force Base."
"Cannon must take responsibility of this problem and stop hiding behind the curtain of government," he wrote in a statement.

Two Bozeman men were sentenced in U.S. District Court this week for illegally discharging lead-contaminated water into a public sewer system, according to U.S. Attorney Kurt G. Alme.
On Thursday, Chief U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen sentenced Zachary Daniel Flanagan, 27, of Bozeman, to five years of probation and imposed a $50,000 fine.
“The defendants violated the city’s wastewater pretreatment program when they discharged lead contaminated wastewater into the public sewer system,” said Jeffrey Martinez, special agent in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Criminal Investigative Division in Montana.
The casings were placed in cement mixers where they were cleaned in a water and vinegar solution.
In November 2013, Flanagan contacted by email Dustin Johnson, the pretreatment coordinator of the Bozeman wastewater facility, to try to get permission for USA Brass to discharge lead wastewater into the city sewer system.
Flanagan followed up the request in December with another email to Johnson seeking approval to dispose the wastewater through the sewer and told him that an environmental analyst who reviewed the lab results said it would be fine to send the wastewater down the sewer.
On the same day in December, Johnson responded to Flanagan’s email and, based on Flanagan’s false statements, authorized the discharge of the lead wastewater into the sewer system.
When Johnson learned that Flanagan had provided him false information, he told investigators he would never have granted the company permission to discharge the wastewater.
The investigation also found that in September 2013, USA Brass installed a sink in the facility to dispose of the lead wastewater into the city sewer system.
Flanagan and Schimpf were present on more than one occasion as the wastewater was being pumped down the sink but neither stopped the discharge or sought permission for the discharge.

The issue with debris leaving the landfill site and ending up on Andrea Weissenborn’s property has been ongoing for years, and the CSRD has made an agreement to enter her property to clean up the waste on a regular basis.
CSRD workers had been visiting the Weissenborn property a couple of times a week to clean up the litter that ended up outside of the landfill, which Weissenborn believes is mostly carried there by ravens.
“In the past, we have been open to them cleaning it up, but it has never been satisfactory,” Weissenborn said.
“In the past, we thought that was just part of living next to a landfill.” Between June and October 2018, the CSRD collected more than 200 bags of litter from the Weissenborn property, weighing nearly 1,000 kg.
Over the next year, the CSRD plans to continue site improvements at the Golden Landfill, including completing the litter netting, which should help prevent litter from exiting the property, and they hope to continue discussions with the neighbouring property owner regarding increased buffer area acquisition.
Weissenborn also voiced concerns about water contamination in Town of Golden wells, but the CSRD’s hydrogeologist with Western Water Bryer Manwell, says the numbers aren’t out of the ordinary, and it would be difficult to tell if any contaminants came directly from the landfill.
“There is likely another source.” Manwell hopes to complete the well at the southwest of the property, and is recommending to drill another well in the valley bottom, somewhere between the landfill and the Town wells, but not too close to a roadway.
Westbound on the Trans-Canada Highway, and accident has snarled traffic coming into town at Golden View Road, at the Golden Upper Donald overpass, prompting emergency response.
Winter driving is in full effect, and drivers are expected to have winter-rated tires on all vehicles from October 1 to March 31.
Snowfall in Golden is expected to continue over the next three days, and sunny weather is expected on Saturday.

According to the report, the contamination in drinking water is commonly tested when the herbicide is not in use A new report from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that nearly 30 million Americans in 28 states have some level of atrazine in their tap water, the second most widely used weed killer in the U.S.
The report found that 472 water utility systems in Texas tested positive in at least one detection for the chemical, according to the Texas Tribune.
EWG compared 2017 federal testing data collected at utilities in seven states with levels reported to state authorities over the same period of time.
The group concluded that for 70% of utilities analyzed tests were conducted outside periods of the atrazine spikes or reported levels below what U.S. EPA tests found.
Based off of this date, the group found that water utilities are testing for atrazine at times when farmers are not using the chemical, in order to receive results within compliance with federal regulations.
According to EWG, EPA’s limit for atrazine in drinking water is 3 ppb, however, EPA data for 2017 shows that water utilities in Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio had atrazine spikes much higher than the federal legal limit for the chemical.
The two highest spikes were in Evansville, Ill., at 22 ppb, and Piqua, Ohio, at 16 ppb.
However, the Safe Drinking Water Act allos utilities to report only annual averages.

How well has the State of Michigan responded to the problem of PFAS contamination of our groundwater?
That was the focus of a Grand Rapids hearing Tuesday convened by U.S.
PFAS, or “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances,” are a group of highly-resistant industrial chemicals that have been used in the production of firefighting foam, waterproof shoes, non-stick pots and pans, and other materials since the 1950s.
They discovered that the soil was “highly contaminated.” “We started taking duplicate samples of everything the Air Force did, and as we proceeded, we found PFOS, PFOA, and a bunch of other chemicals all over the base, all through the surface water, and in all the fish,” Delaney said.
PFAS chemicals are nearly impossible to break down.
He recommended checking state blood and food supplies for contamination as preliminary measures to address the PFAS problem.
But aside forming a small PFAS task group at the agency and adding the chemicals to yearly sampling for fish and water, Delaney didn’t see much movement on the issue.
Snyder’s recent action on PFAS, years after the circulation of his report, Delaney said that “nothing is perfect.” “Governor Snyder came in with a mandate to fix the economy," he said.
He said that the Snyder administration has taken a more aggressive and informed approach to environmental quality issues since the fallout from the Flint water crisis.
"Michigan is by far not the only state with PFAS problems, we’re just the ones that are — us and a few other states — are really shining a light on ‘Hey, this is in your water.

Courtesy photo 1 / 1 Dawn-Marie Stevens and her family are stocked up on water in bottles and jugs, which they and their pets are drinking while they wait to see if nearby homes in Robinson Township are contaminated with PFAS.
Officials were helpful, Barlow said, but they did not have all the answers.
“They’re looking for answers.” Barlow, a president of the Parent-Teacher Association at Robinson Elementary School for seven years, said she and her family switched to bottled water when the initial results were released Oct. 29.
While the school was immediately supplied with bottled water for drinking and cooking, many township residents have also switched to bottled water at home to avoid drinking their well water.
“There’s always something new you can test for.
He said it took less than a week to receive the results, which found no traces of PFAS, and cost him $275.
“I am responsible for my family’s well-being.” Wagenmaker, who is married with five children, has lived on the Robinson Township property for almost 20 years.
“I can see if you had water that was contaminated and an entity that was found to be responsible, they should be held responsible to the extent that they had knowledge,” he said.
Michigan is in the midst of a statewide study of PFAS, which led to the discovery at the Robinson Township school.
“Nobody’s given anybody clear-cut answers of what the next course of action is going to be if this is found in the few homes that they did test,” Stevens said.

Ever since Flint’s water crisis, people in other communities have watched for signs of tainted water.
He’s been talking to contractors about replacing them, and hopes to get the work done in the next few months.
But his children may have been exposed to tainted water anyway — at school.
The water fountains in all 106 schools run by the Detroit Public Schools Community District have been dry since classes began in August.
“We are talking about Detroit now because we proactively tested all water sources, and defined the problem with a solution,” said Nikolai P. Vitti, the superintendent.
In Newark, N.J., officials insisted for months that drinking water was safe before reversing course last month when a new study showed lead contamination.
After the Flint crisis erupted, Michigan stepped up blood testing of children for elevated lead levels.
Others voiced outrage that the problem had gotten as far as it has, including Roslyn Markhal, whose daughter attends Chrysler Elementary, another school found to have elevated copper or lead levels in its water.
In the schools in Baltimore, officials have been using bottled water for drinking since 2007, after tests revealed elevated lead levels there.
Over the past 18 months, the Detroit Health Department has ramped up efforts to test children who may have been exposed, including sending workers to knock on the doors of every resident in neighborhoods where children have been found with elevated copper or lead levels, according to Tamekia Ashford, a spokeswoman for the department.

Oil production in South Sudan has poisoned the drinking water of some 600,000 people.
"As a responsible organization, we place the interests of the local community as paramount," the Kuala Lumpur-based Petronas wrote to DW on April 18, dismissing the allegations by Sign of Hope, which works to protect the rights of people in distress.
Read more: NGO blames water pollution in S.Sudan on oil company "Whilst we deny the allegations made by Sign of Hope, we are considering Sign of Hope’s views about improving the situation in South Sudan and we are pleased to have had a positive exchange right at our very first meeting," Petronas said.
A concrete proposal was already on the table, it added.
At the time, Sign of Hope was running several health projects in the region.
Africa Water Ltd. wants to restore functionality to 15 boreholes within one year to give people in the region access to uncontaminated water.
"The Water for Life project will bring benefits of clean water supply to more than 40,000 people in South Sudan," Petronas spokeswoman Zahariah Abd Rahman told DW in an email.
More water projects would follow, she said.
What came as a surprise was that the project is not in South Sudan’s oil region but in the capital Juba.
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“The government still allows an astonishing amount of pollution to flow into our lakes and rivers,” Saxe said.
She pointed to raw municipal sewage from combined sewer overflows (CSOs), agricultural runoff, toxic industrial waste and road salt as the four biggest sources of water contamination in the province.
“All four are things that the Ontario government has known about for decades, but has consistently chosen not to regulate them effectively,” the commissioner said.
Municipalities struggle with curbing raw sewage discharges Sewage from combined sewer overflows may be the worst culprit of all.
Municipalities can be permitted to dump raw sewage into water bodies if they have “used all reasonable measures” to avoid it, Saxe said.
According to her report, Back to Basics, one in five Ontarians do not consume water that is protected by the Clean Water Act, legislation from 2006 that set in law how the province would protect source water (lakes, for example, or aquifers) on a watershed-by-watershed basis.
Of those residents not drinking water protected by provincial legislation, three percent are in northern or Indigenous communities, Saxe said.
And while 82 percent of Ontarians who get municipal drinking water have access to clean water, it’s unwise to expect that municipalities can provide safe drinking water indefinitely if source water protections set to expire on March 31, 2019 are not renewed.
“We have to get water from somewhere,” Saxe said.
“The more we pollute the water, not only do we lose biodiversity, but it becomes harder and harder to find water we can drink.” And across the province, more municipalities are seeing the effects of polluted water.