Vol. 3 No. 3 Winter 1995
A Newsletter About New Jersey's Water Quality Programs

Who is acts as "watchdog" over the many miles of interstate waters along New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut? Who ensures actions in one state do not negatively impact the environmental quality in a neighboring state? Who coordinates the States' efforts to protect shared waters? The answer - the Interstate Sanitation Commission (ISC).

The ISC is a tri-state agency, including the states of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

The agency is aimed at controlling existing and future pollution and resolving interstate conflicts which arise in the shared waters. The ISC was established under a compact between New Jersey and New York in 1936 and approved by the U.S. Congress. Connecticut joined in 1941.

New Jersey shares its Harbor and Bight waters with New York. New York, in turn, shares Long Island Sound waters with Connecticut. The Sound and Harbor waters mix through the East River at the northern end of the Harbor. The NY-NJ Harbor Estuary, Bight, and Sound function, in many respects, as a single interactive ecosystem. As such, there is a compelling need for coordinating planning and regulation, and implementing the comprehensive plans being developed for these waters through the National Estuary Program.

The ICS's area of jurisdiction runs west from Port Jefferson and New Haven on Long Island Sound, from Bear Mountain on the Hudson River down to Sandy Hook, New Jersey (including Upper and Lower New York Bays, Newark Bay, Arthur Kill and Kill Van Kull), the Atlantic Ocean out to Fire Island Inlet on the southern shore of Long Island, and the waters abutting all five boroughs of New York City.

Historically, the Harbor ecosystem experienced tremendous population growth which brought increasingly serious pollution to the Harbor, coastal, and tidal areas. Such pollution was potentially hazardous to the health of people and living organisms residing in the area as well as an economic loss for the region.

Since the 1930s, the ISC has been instrumental in working with the States to get wastewater treatment facilities built and upgraded to prevent pollution in the District's waters. With secondary treatment in place, the elimination of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) or the amelioration of their adverse effects is necessary to achieve further significant improvements. As a result of ISC actions, New Jersey and New York have year round disinfection requirements which allow some shellfish beds, subject to State restrictions and advisories, to be used throughout the year.

The ISC is also involved in protecting interstate waters from floatable debris. A significant amount of this debris enters the Harbor as street litter. The most common method of entry into the Harbor/Bight system is via combined sewer overflows (CSOs) (see New Jersey Discharger, June 1994), which are not only significant sources of floatables, but also toxics, pathogens (disease-causing organisms), and nutrients. Combined sewers, which transport both sanitary sewage and stormwater, serve most of the Harbor area. There are approximately 730 CSO points discharging into the Harbor: 482 in New York and 248 in New Jersey. Both States have CSO Abatement programs.

Controlling CSOs has been a major focus of ISC's efforts. Both New York and New Jersey are committed, in the draft NY-NJ Harbor Estuary Program (HEP) Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP), to control rainfall-induced discharges to the Harbor from sources such as CSOs, storm water, and non-point source runoff. On another front, the ISC is working with the States in implementing measures to fulfill requirements of the National CSO Control Policy.

The ISC is also actively coordinating both nutrient data collection in New Jersey (to be used in conjunction with New York City's Harbor-wide Eutrophication Model (HEM)) and the HEP's monitoring and data management plan.

The ISC and other interstate agencies throughout the nation (for example, Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, Susquehanna River Basin Commission, Delaware River Basin Commission, and the Interstate Commission of the Potomac River) have a long history of bringing states together to resolve environmental problems. Because of the powers of their compacts, which may include regulatory control and the authority to conduct monitoring and research, these interstate commissions provide a mechanism to coordinate or supplement state actions to improve and maintain water and air quality in the their regions. They also provide a neutral forum where states may raise issues of regional coordination and management to protect a shared resource--their estuaries.

For more information about the ISC please contact Dr. Mary Downes Gastrich of the Division of Science and Research at (609) 292-1895.