Environmental Stewardship

The Commission’s Wanaque Reservoir is home to bald eagles. Commission employees have been monitoring a nest on the property which was discovered in 2005 and still continues to be productive. Since 2005, 16 chicks have fledged from the nest. Winter also brings numerous sightings of visiting eagles, including 50 bald eagles and the only sightings of golden eagles in New Jersey. The Commission is working on this effort cooperatively with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program, along with volunteers from the Wildlife Conversation Corps.

The Commission continues to work closely with the NJDEP to ensure that Tennessee Gas Company (TGC), which is installing a new gas line next to an existing easement on Commission property and below Monksville Reservoir, takes all necessary precautions to protect the reservoir and watershed lands. The Commission is coordinating with the NJDEP to ensure that the latest drilling technology and stringent drilling requirements are employed, and that adequate buffer zones are created, to protect the purity of the reservoir. The Commission has also worked to require that TGC utilizes an effective tree mitigation and replacement strategy to restore land in the watershed disturbed by the construction activity.

With the support of the New Jersey Infrastructure Trust, the Commission installed an array of 1,050 solar photovoltaic panels on the roof of the Filter Building. The array is capable of producing 240 kilowatts, aiding in the reduction of total energy consumption at the Commission’s Water Treatment Plant. The solar project was completed in August 2011, and since then over one half million kilowatt hours of power have been generated.