JAMES M. O’NEILL / NORTHJERSEY.COM – When Hurricane Sandy barreled into the New Jersey coast five years ago today, it pushed a 12-foot storm surge from Newark Bay across the campus of the fifth largest sewage treatment plant in the country, damaging equipment and knocking out power.
As a result, some 840 million gallons of raw sewage poured untreated into the Passaic River. And during the three weeks after the storm, as the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission’s 140-acre facility struggled to get back to full service, 4.4 billion gallons of partially treated sewage were released into New York Harbor – enough to fill the Empire State Building 16 times.
Sandy’s wrath showed how vulnerable New Jersey’s infrastructure is to damage from severe storms …
