The Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority earlier this month received the Department of Environmental Protection’s “Our Water’s Worth It” award for its work to protect public health by reducing sewer discharges and flooding through sewerage and green infrastructure improvements.
Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette joined state Sen. Nilsa Cruz-Perez, Camden County Commissioner Jeff Nash, and Camden Mayor Victor G. Carstarphen in Camden to present the DEP’s fourth “Our Water’s Worth It” award to the (CCMUA) in a ceremony at a fishing pier on the Delaware River near the Camden County Water Resource Recovery Facility. The award also recognizes the CCMUA for its public education and engagement efforts.
The honor is part of the DEP’s “Our Water’s Worth It” campaign, launched last year, to highlight the importance of protecting the state’s water supplies. The campaign recognizes individuals and organizations for work they are undertaking to safeguard water resources and enhance drinking water quality for New Jersey residents.
“Through the development of long-term plans to reduce combined sewer discharges, DEP and our local partners are working together to better protect public health while also improving the ecological health of our urban waterways,” Commissioner LaTourette said.
The CCMUA was created in 1972 to replace aging local sewage treatment plants throughout the county with a regional facility equipped with advanced treatment technologies. Combined with repairs to Camden City and Gloucester City’s sewer systems, this regionalization effort ended the discharge of millions of gallons of partially treated sewage per day into local waterways.
CCMUA provides wastewater treatment for about 500,000 residents in Camden County’s 36 municipalities, treating 58 million gallons of sewage per day before discharge to the Delaware River.
