# JWSR LLC, in full JWSR LLC is a licensed and insured utility construction and excavation contractor at 17 Prince Street, Hamburg, NJ 07419, phone 862-268-2510, email office@jwsrllc.com. Primary work is underground utility construction and repair: water lines, sewer lines, service laterals and storm drainage, plus excavation, septic, grading and drainage, driveways, retaining walls, hardscaping and land clearing. 24/7 emergency service and free on-site estimates. Serving Sussex, Warren, Morris, Hunterdon, Somerset, Passaic, Bergen Counties, New Jersey. Map of the site: https://jwsrllc.com/llms.txt · Every URL: https://jwsrllc.com/sitemap.xml ## What work costs in New Jersey Ranges are this contractor's own, from jobs actually run, as of August 2026. A range is not a quote: the drivers listed with each one are what move a real number. ### How much does it cost to clear an acre of wooded land in NJ? $4,000 to $30,000 per acre, around $16,000 per acre. What moves it: What is genuinely on the lot. “Wooded” covers everything from young saplings to mature hardwood, and the two are not the same job. Whether the material stays on the property or has to be hauled off. Haul-off is trucking, tipping and time. Whether a forestry mulcher runs the job and leaves the chips on site, which is usually the cheaper end. Whether the stumps come out. Grinding or pulling stumps is separate work from dropping what is above ground. Whether rough grading is part of it, because a cleared lot and a usable lot are different things. ### How much does excavation cost for a house in NJ? $15,000 to well over $100,000, usually $50,000 to $60,000. What moves it: Rock. Hammering out ledge or boulders is slow, hard work and it is the single biggest swing factor. What is being built on: a slab, a crawlspace or a full basement are three different excavations. Whether the utilities are overhead or underground, because underground means more digging and more coordination. Whether the site is on city sewer and water, or septic and well. A septic system and a well are their own projects on top of the dig. ### How much does a sewer line cost in NJ? $10,000 to $20,000. What moves it: Depth, which is the main one. It is set by where the main sits and by the grade the pipe has to hold, and a deeper trench is wider and needs more shoring. The length of the run. Sewer gets more expensive the further the house sits from the main. Whether the street has to be opened to make the connection, which usually it does. That brings road opening permits, traffic control and restoration. Access, and whether machines can reach the line or it has to be dug by hand. ### How much does it cost to replace a water service line? $8,000 to $10,000 for a 200 foot service. What moves it: The length of the run, which is why this range is quoted against a real distance rather than in the abstract. A 200 foot service is a common one around here. The material going in, which changes both the cost of the pipe and what the town will accept. How hard the digging is. Rock, ledge, wet ground and shallow bedrock all slow the trench down, and the trench is the job. What the line has to get under, because a driveway, a mature tree or a finished surface can turn an open cut into a bore. ### How much does it cost to convert septic to sewer in NJ? $15,000 to $35,000. What moves it: Asphalt. If the connection is out in the street, the road opening and its restoration are a real line on the bill, and the town decides how much pavement goes back. Whether a doghouse manhole is needed at the main or one is already there. Straddling a live sewer main with a new structure so it can be tapped without stopping flow is a different job from tying into a manhole that already exists. What the town or county health department wants for decommissioning the old septic. The tank has to be pumped and properly abandoned, and how much they want to see, and inspect, varies by department. Distance and depth from the house to the main, which is the same thing that drives any lateral. The authority's connection fee, which is not our money and is set by a formula in state law. It is a separate number from anything a contractor quotes. ### How much does it cost to pave a driveway in NJ? $5,000 to $12,000. What moves it: Size, obviously, but shape more than people expect. Turnarounds, aprons and parking areas add square footage that nobody counted when they said “just the driveway”. What is under it. A driveway is only as good as its base, and a surface laid over a failing base fails the same way in the same places. Whether the old surface has to come out and be hauled away, which is why repaving is not automatically cheaper than paving. Drainage. Where the water goes decides how long the surface lasts, and a drive that sheds water onto a garage slab or the road is a problem being installed rather than solved. Access and grade. Steep, tight or long runs are slower, and slower is the cost. ### How much does it cost to repave a driveway in NJ? $6,000 to $15,000. What moves it: Removal and disposal of the existing surface, which is the reason this range sits above a new install rather than below it. What the excavation finds underneath. If the base is sound the job is a surface job; if it is not, correcting it is the real work. Whether the failure was a drainage problem, because repaving over the same water gets the same result on the same schedule. ### How much does driveway sealcoating cost in NJ? $300 to $800. What moves it: Area, and how much crack filling and preparation is needed before anything gets sealed. Condition. Sealer is maintenance for a sound surface, not a repair for a failing one. ### How much does a heated driveway cost in NJ? $25,000 to $60,000. What moves it: Area heated, and this is the lever most people do not know they have. Heating the apron and the tire tracks rather than every square foot is a materially different number for most of the same benefit. Which system. Electric resistance cable is cheaper to install and more expensive to run; hydronic tubing fed by a boiler is the reverse. The decision is really about which cost you would rather carry. Whether it is going into a new driveway or an existing one, because the heat has to sit under the surface either way. What the supply can take. A system is only as good as the electrical service or the boiler capacity behind it, and upgrading either is its own line. ### How much does a sewer camera inspection cost in NJ? $200 to $800. What moves it: How much line there is. One straight section is a different afternoon from a system with several drains, branches and a lot of footage, and time is what you are paying for. Whether there is a usable access point. A cleanout makes this simple. No cleanout means pulling a fixture or finding another way in, and that is added time before the camera ever goes down. How far out it goes. Running to the street main is more line, and more line is more time. Whether the line is full. A pipe holding water or packed with roots may need clearing before a camera can see anything useful, which is separate work. ### How much does it cost to repair a sewer line in NJ? $3,000 to $8,000. What moves it: Whether the failure is one section or the whole line. Root intrusion or a collapsed piece of PVC can be lined or dug up and repaired in one place. The material. A line in Orangeburg or cast iron is usually a full replacement rather than a repair, because fixing one section of a failing material buys very little. Access, and whether the repair is under a lawn, a driveway or a finished surface. ### How much does it cost to replace a sewer lateral in NJ? $10,000 to $20,000. What moves it: Depth, which is the main one. A deep lateral means a deeper, wider, more heavily shored trench for the same length of pipe. Length of the run from the house out to the main. Whether the work reaches into the street, which brings a road opening permit and restoration with it. Access, and what the trench has to cross to get there. ### How much does directional boring cost in NJ? $25 to $100 per foot. What moves it: The size of the bore, meaning the diameter of what is going in the ground. The difficulty, which is ground conditions, what is already down there, and how much room there is to set up. Setup and takedown, which is why a short bore costs more per foot than a long one. ### How much does it cost to trench utilities in NJ per foot? $22 to $300 per foot. What moves it: Terrain, which is the first question. Lawn is not the same as ledge. The service itself. A 50 foot water service and a 4,000 foot water main extension are not the same work priced at the same rate. Whether asphalt has to be cut and repaved. Whether anything has to be cut through, such as a hole under a foundation. Whether part of the run has to be bored rather than trenched. ### How much does it cost to dig up and repair a buried utility line in NJ? $8,000 to $12,000 for one location, typically $8,500. What moves it: Whether asphalt has to be sawcut and put back. It is one of the larger single line items and it is the reason two otherwise identical repairs can be thousands apart. How many separate locations have to be opened. A second dig on the same trip is far cheaper than a second mobilization, and two localized repairs on one lateral have come in around $11,500 against roughly $8,500 for one. Depth, and what else is in the trench beside the thing you came for. Whether a spot repair actually holds once it is open. Where the pipe turns out to be failed either side of the damage, the honest answer is a section replacement, and that is $15,000 territory rather than $8,000. ### How much does rock excavation cost in North Jersey? $4,400 per day to hammer rock, one day minimum. What moves it: How much rock is actually there, which nobody knows until the hammer is in it. That is why this is billed time and materials rather than as a lump sum. The size of the job. A bigger job gets a better rate, because the mobilization is spread across more days. ### How much does it cost to fill in an old swimming pool in NJ? around $8,000 for a typical pool. What moves it: The size of the pool, which sets how much fill it takes. A typical one is a few truckloads of RCA or DGA. Access for trucks, because fill has to get to the hole. ### How much does it cost to run electric to a detached garage in NJ? $10,000 to $15,000. What moves it: The size of the service going out there, because that changes the conductor and the trench. The length of the trench from the panel to the garage. What the run has to cross on the way, particularly a driveway or a finished surface. ### How much does a septic system cost in NJ? $30,000 to $75,000. What moves it: The system type, which the soil decides rather than the budget. See below. Where the property is, and what the local health department requires. How much of the lot has to be excavated and replaced to build a suitable disposal field. Access for machines, and whether the field can go where you would want it. ### How much does a retaining wall cost in NJ? $3,000 to over $100,000. What moves it: Size, which means height and length together. Height drives engineering far faster than length does. Materials, from segmental block through natural stone to poured concrete. Whether the wall needs to be engineered, which depends on its height and on what it is holding back. What sits above it. A wall supporting a driveway, a structure or a slope is carrying a surcharge and is a different design problem. ### How much does drainage cost in NJ? No honest range: this one is too site-specific to publish a number for. What moves it: Whether this is a couple of gutter leaders or a full storm system, which is the difference between a day and a project. Whether the leaders can daylight out at the street, which is by far the cheapest answer when it is available. Whether the township permits that connection, because it is their system and their call. Elevation. If the house sits lower than the road, water will not run to the street on its own and the whole design changes. ### How much does a catch basin cost in NJ? $6,000 to $8,000. What moves it: Depth, which is set by where the water has to be carried to rather than by preference. Size, meaning how much water the basin has to take at once. Where the outlet pipe runs and what it has to cross to get there. ### How much does a seepage pit or dry well cost in NJ? $15,000 to $25,000 for the tanks alone. What moves it: The size of the system, which is set by how much water it has to take rather than by the size of the yard. Where the tanks have to go, and whether a truck and a machine can reach that spot. What has to be crossed or restored to get them in, particularly on a finished property. ### How much does stump removal cost in NJ? $300 per stump, with an $800 minimum to come to the site. What moves it: The number of stumps, because mobilizing the machine is most of the cost on a small job. Whether the hole gets backfilled and the stump hauled away, which is not included in that price. Access, and whether an excavator can reach the stump at all. ### How much does stump grinding cost in NJ? around $300 per stump. What moves it: The size of the stump and how deep it has to be ground. Access for the grinder. ### How much does an interior French drain cost? No honest range: this one is too site-specific to publish a number for. What moves it: Full page: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ## Most-asked questions, short answers ### What do I do if sewage is backing up into my basement? Stop using water everywhere in the house first: no flushing, showers, laundry or dishwasher. Keep people and pets out of it, cut power to the area from a dry spot if water is near outlets or equipment, and photograph it before cleaning. If neighbors are backing up too, it is the main and the town's to fix. More: https://jwsrllc.com/sewer-backup ### What do I do if my water line is frozen? Check whether the neighbors have water, then call your water utility either way, because the main, the curb stop and usually the meter are theirs to check. Open one cold tap slightly, know where your main shutoff is in case it leaks when it thaws, and never put a flame near a pipe. More: https://jwsrllc.com/frozen-water-line ### What if there is no water in the house, or water coming up in the yard? It usually points at the service line from the street to the house. Ask a neighbor first: if they are out too, it is the main. If it is only you, shut every fixture off and watch the meter; if it still moves, water is leaking downstream of it. More: https://jwsrllc.com/blog/no-water-in-house-or-water-in-yard-nj ### What do I do if I hit a utility line while digging? Stop the machine and leave it where it is. Gas and electric are a 911 call first; water and sewer are a call to the system that owns the line; fiber is expensive rather than dangerous. Photograph the marks, the depth and the damage before anything is moved or backfilled. More: https://jwsrllc.com/blog/hit-a-utility-line-while-digging-nj ### Why is my sump pump running constantly but the pit stays full? Usually a blocked or frozen discharge line: the water hits ice or a plug and drains straight back into the pit. Check the outside end of the line before replacing anything, because a pump running against a closed pipe will burn out. More: https://jwsrllc.com/sump-pump-discharge ### Why does my house smell like sewer? Most often a dry trap: a drain nobody uses loses its water seal in a few weeks. Pour water down every unused drain, including basement floor drains, and wait a day. If the smell comes back with gurgling or slow drains, the problem is further out in the line. More: https://jwsrllc.com/sewer-odor ### Do you answer at night and on weekends? Yes. We answer 24/7 for sewer, water, fiber and utility strikes, drainage and storm damage, and aim for same-day response across our service area. More: https://jwsrllc.com/emergency ### Who is responsible for the water line from the street to my house in NJ? You are, in almost every case. The utility owns the main in the street and usually the curb stop; from the curb to the house the service line is the property owner's. Where exactly the boundary falls is set by your water system's tariff, so confirm it with them. More: https://jwsrllc.com/water-service-replacement ### Who is responsible for a water main break in New Jersey? The water system. The main in the street and the curb stop belong to your water purveyor, and repairing a break in the main is their work and their cost. More: https://jwsrllc.com/water-main-break ### Who owns the sewer line from my house to the street? In most New Jersey towns the property owner owns the lateral, often all the way to the main including the part under the road, but there is no statewide rule and some towns start your responsibility at the curb or a cleanout. Check your town's ordinance before work starts. More: https://jwsrllc.com/blog/all-drains-slow-at-once-nj ### Does homeowners insurance cover a sewer backup in NJ? Often not under a standard policy. Sewer and drain backup is usually an add-on endorsement, so check your declarations page and document the damage with photos before anything is cleaned up. More: https://jwsrllc.com/sewer-backup ### Who pays if a sewer scope fails during a home sale? Whoever the parties agree pays; there is no rule assigning it. It is usually settled as a repair, a credit or a price reduction, and a firm written number from a contractor is what moves that conversation. More: https://jwsrllc.com/blog/sewer-scope-failed-inspection-nj ### Can I sell a house in NJ that is on a cesspool? Not while it stays a cesspool: New Jersey requires a cesspool to be replaced at the time of a property transfer. An older septic system that simply does not meet today's standards is not a cesspool and is not required to be upgraded on that basis alone. More: https://jwsrllc.com/can-i ### Do I need a permit to clear land in New Jersey? Usually, once you disturb more than 5,000 square feet, about an eighth of an acre: that needs a soil erosion and sediment control plan certified by your county Soil Conservation District. Owning the land does not exempt you; agricultural clearing is treated differently. More: https://jwsrllc.com/blog/land-clearing-permit-nj ### Do I need a permit for a French drain in NJ? Usually not from the state for a standalone yard drain, which disturbs far less than 5,000 square feet. Your town may want a zoning or grading permit, and a drain tied into piping at the house needs a construction permit. More: https://jwsrllc.com/blog/french-drain-permit-nj ### Do I need a permit for a retaining wall in NJ? Yes at four feet or more of total height, measured from the bottom of the footing, and also for a shorter wall that holds up a driveway, a structure or a slope. More: https://jwsrllc.com/can-i ### Do I need a permit for a driveway culvert or a new gravel driveway? Usually for a culvert, from whoever owns the road your driveway meets: the town, the county or NJDOT. A gravel driveway can need a soil erosion plan if it disturbs more than 5,000 square feet, which a long rural drive often does. More: https://jwsrllc.com/driveway-drainage ### Do I need a permit to fill in a pool in NJ? It varies by town, so call your construction office before anything starts. Some treat it as a demolition, some want the electrical disconnect inspected, and some want nothing. More: https://jwsrllc.com/pool-removal ### Do I need a permit to install or replace a septic system? Yes, from your local health department. The process starts with soil testing and an engineered design, which the health department approves before anything is built. More: https://jwsrllc.com/services/septic-installation ### Can I dig on my own property without calling 811? Usually not. New Jersey counts a homeowner digging on their own property as an excavator, and fence posts, tree and root removal and trenching all count. The call is free and routine tickets take three business days. We do not start any job without an 811 ticket. More: https://jwsrllc.com/utility-markout-colors ### How long is an 811 markout good for in NJ? Forty-five business days from the notification, roughly nine weeks, and only if the marks are maintained. After that you need a fresh ticket. More: https://jwsrllc.com/nj-utility-damage-law ### Can I connect a French drain or sump pump to the sanitary sewer? No. New Jersey requires groundwater and roof water to be kept out of sanitary sewers. A drain or sump line needs its own outlet: daylight, a dry well, or a permitted storm connection. More: https://jwsrllc.com/sump-pump-discharge ### Can a contractor who is not a licensed plumber replace my water service? Not the plumbing part. The homeowner exception applies only to a homeowner on their own home; for anyone else the connection is licensed plumbing work, so a proper job has an excavation crew and a licensed plumber. More: https://jwsrllc.com/can-i ### Is a septic inspection required when you sell a house in NJ? Ask your local health department, because septic rules are administered locally and requirements at a sale are set at that level. It is a free phone call. More: https://jwsrllc.com/septic-inspection ### How deep are water lines buried in New Jersey? Below the frost line with at least 42 inches of earth cover over the pipe, under New Jersey's plumbing subcode. Lines that freeze are usually ones that were never put that deep. More: https://jwsrllc.com/blog/how-deep-are-water-lines-buried-nj ### How deep is a sewer line in NJ? The code minimum is shallower than a water line's, but in practice sewer depth is set by the depth of the main it has to reach, which is usually well below the minimum. More: https://jwsrllc.com/blog/how-deep-should-a-sewer-line-be-nj ### How long does a water service line replacement take? One to two days for a typical 100 to 200 foot residential service, and the water is usually off for hours, not days, because the outage is only the tie-in at the end. More: https://jwsrllc.com/how-long-does-it-take ### How long does a sewer lateral replacement take? Two to three days for a full lateral. Depth matters more than length, and a main in the street adds a road opening permit and pavement restoration. More: https://jwsrllc.com/how-long-does-it-take ### How long does a septic system installation take? One to two weeks from start to final grade. The digging is days; the health department's staged inspections set the rest of the calendar. More: https://jwsrllc.com/how-long-does-it-take ### How long does 811 take in New Jersey? Plan on three full business days for a routine ticket. The notice has to go in at least 3 and no more than 10 business days before digging, under N.J.S.A. 48:2-82(a). Emergencies are different: operators must respond within two hours. More: https://jwsrllc.com/telecom-construction-costs ### Can you replace a water or sewer line in winter? Yes. Frozen ground slows the dig and we thaw the work area with ground heaters, but the pipe goes in and the water comes back on. Grading and seed wait for spring. More: https://jwsrllc.com/blog/water-line-replacement-winter-nj ### Can you bore under my driveway instead of tearing it up? Usually, and it is the main reason to bore. It is not guaranteed: rock can push a bore off line, and an existing utility in the path forces an open cut. More: https://jwsrllc.com/directional-boring ### How much does it cost to replace a water line from the street to the house in NJ? With us, $8,000 to $10,000 for a 200 foot service, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does a sewer camera inspection cost in NJ? With us, $200 to $800, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does it cost to repair a sewer line in NJ? With us, $3,000 to $8,000, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. That is a spot repair; a full sewer line runs more. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does it cost to replace a sewer line in NJ? With us, $10,000 to $20,000, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. Depth and the length of the run move it most. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does a septic system cost in NJ? With us, $30,000 to $75,000, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does it cost to convert from septic to sewer in NJ? With us, $15,000 to $35,000, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does it cost to clear an acre of land in NJ? With us, $4,000 to $30,000 per acre, typically around $16,000 per acre, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does directional boring cost per foot? With us, $25 to $100 per foot, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does it cost to pave a driveway in NJ? With us, $5,000 to $12,000, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does it cost to fill in a swimming pool in NJ? With us, around $8,000 for a typical pool, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does stump removal cost? With us, $300 per stump, with an $800 minimum to come to the site, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. We pull stumps with an excavator; we do not grind them. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does a retaining wall cost in NJ? With us, $3,000 to over $100,000, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does a catch basin cost in NJ? With us, $6,000 to $8,000, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### How much does it cost to run electric to a detached garage? With us, $10,000 to $15,000, as of August 2026 in northern New Jersey. More: https://jwsrllc.com/what-it-costs ### Do you charge for estimates? No. On-site estimates are free. The one exception is design work such as drawings or a site plan, and that fee comes off the total if you hire us. More: https://jwsrllc.com/contact ### Are you licensed and insured? Yes. JWSR LLC is fully licensed and insured, licensed in New Jersey and New York, and certificates of insurance are available on request. More: https://jwsrllc.com/credentials ### What areas do you serve? Seven New Jersey counties from our base in Hamburg: Sussex, Warren, Morris, Hunterdon, Somerset, Passaic and Bergen. More: https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas ### What work don't you do? We do not clear clogs, replace sump pumps, do septic inspections, install interior French drains, grind stumps, blast rock or repair gas and energized electric lines. Rock on our jobs is hammered or dug out. We will tell you who does the rest, and we take the digging when the pipe itself has failed. More: https://jwsrllc.com/services ### Do I need a plumber or an excavator to replace my sewer or water line? Both. The digging is excavation work and the connection is licensed plumbing work, and on our jobs both show up. More: https://jwsrllc.com/services/sewer-water-line ### How do I know if I have septic or sewer? Check your bill: a sewer or wastewater charge means public sewer. Otherwise look for a tank lid in the yard, usually eight to fifteen feet from the house, and ask your town's health department, which has any septic permit on file. More: https://jwsrllc.com/septic-or-sewer Full page: https://jwsrllc.com/faq ## What a homeowner may legally do in New Jersey ### Can I replace my own water or sewer line in NJ? Sometimes. If it is your own single-family dwelling, the code allows it. N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.15 says plumbing work shall not be undertaken except by persons licensed to perform it, with an explicit exception for a single-family homeowner working on their own home. What that exception does not do is excuse you from anything else: you still need the permit, the inspection, and a call to 811 at least three business days before you dig. And a service line is a deep, narrow trench, which is the single most dangerous thing on a residential site. A trench that collapses does not give you a second chance. ### Can you even get a machine into my backyard? Usually. We need about a four foot gap for our smallest equipment, and a route the machine can actually travel: a reasonably smooth run without tiered retaining walls stacked across the path, because an excavator cannot climb walls. Gates usually come off their hinges for a day, and a fence panel can come out and go back far cheaper than hand digging the whole job. Where the machine genuinely cannot reach, the honest options are a smaller machine working slower, hand work priced as hand work, or in the right conditions boring under the obstacle instead of driving past it. Walk the route in the estimate visit; it is one of the first things we look at. ### Can a contractor who is not a licensed plumber replace my water service? No. Not the plumbing part. The homeowner exception in N.J.A.C. 5:23-2.15 applies to a homeowner on their own dwelling and to nobody else, and the licensed plumber's seal and signature go on the plumbing subcode application itself. The digging is excavation work and the connection is plumbing work. On our jobs an excavation crew and a licensed plumber both show up, which is why the correct answer to whether you need a plumber or an excavator is both. ### Can I sell a house in NJ that is on a cesspool? No. Not while it stays a cesspool. New Jersey is stricter here than most people expect: a cesspool has to be replaced at the time of a real property transfer, under the amendments to N.J.A.C. 7:9A that took effect on April 2, 2012. The old workaround died with them, so adding a septic tank in front of the cesspool to turn it into a seepage pit system no longer gets you out of the requirement. Two things people get wrong in the other direction, though, and both save money. An older system that simply does not meet today's design standards is not a cesspool and is not required to be upgraded on that basis alone, and neither are existing seepage pit systems. And the rule is deliberately silent on who pays, so it is negotiated in the transaction rather than assigned to the seller. Work out which of the three you actually have before anyone agrees to replace anything. ### Can I run my washing machine drain out onto the ground? No. No, and the reason is a definition rather than a judgement call. People assume laundry water is greywater and therefore fair game for the garden, but New Jersey does not recognize that distinction here. N.J.A.C. 7:9A-2.1 defines sanitary sewage to include the water carried wastes discharged from water closets, laundry tubs, washing machines, sinks and dishwashers. Your washing machine is named in the rule. That makes its discharge sewage, and sewage goes to the septic system or the sewer, not out a pipe to the lawn. Two practical consequences worth knowing: a laundry line running to daylight is the kind of thing that surfaces during an inspection or a sale, and rerouting it back into the system is a small job compared with what it can hold up. If the reason somebody ran it outside in the first place was that the septic could not cope with the volume, that is a failing system telling you something, and the answer is the system rather than the bypass. ### Can I install a septic system myself in NJ? No. Realistically, no. Septic systems handling 2,000 gallons a day or less are governed by N.J.A.C. 7:9A and administered by your local health department, and the process starts with soil testing and an engineered design rather than with a machine. Which of the five permitted disposal field installations your property gets is determined by its soil suitability class, not by preference, and the local authority reviews and approves the design before anything is built. ### Can I build a retaining wall myself in NJ? Sometimes. Below four feet, and with nothing bearing on it, often yes. At four feet or more of total height a construction permit is required under the Uniform Construction Code, and so is a wall under four feet that supports a surcharge such as a driveway, a structure or a slope above it. The measurement is the trap: total height runs from the bottom of the footing to the top of the wall, not from the ground you are standing on, so a wall showing three feet of face is frequently over four once the footing is counted. ### Can I clear land myself in NJ? Sometimes. The limit is not who runs the machine, it is how much ground gets disturbed. Past 5,000 square feet, about an eighth of an acre, the work becomes a project under the Soil Erosion and Sediment Control Act and needs a plan certified by your county Soil Conservation District. Disturbance counts stockpiles and the tracks machines cut getting to the work, so it adds up faster than people expect. Tree and root removal is also expressly excavation under the One Call rules, which means the 811 call applies even though you are not laying pipe. ### Can I dig on my own property without calling 811? Usually No. New Jersey defines an excavator to include a homeowner digging on their own residential property. The exclusions are narrower than people assume: routine residential maintenance with non-mechanized equipment, and using a hand tool no deeper than six inches to repair a sprinkler or find a property marker. Meanwhile the definition of excavation expressly names tree and root removal, fence post driving, cable or pipe plowing, boring and trenching, which are ordinary weekend jobs. If a machine is involved, or you are going deeper than a hand tool in a flower bed, call. It is free and it takes three business days. ### Can I put a water line and a sewer line in the same trench? No. Not together, and the separation is specified. N.J.A.C. 7:14A-23.6 requires sewers carrying sanitary flow, combined flow or industrial flow to be separated from water mains by at least 10 feet horizontally. Where that lateral separation is not possible, the pipes must be in separate trenches with the sewer at least 18 inches below the bottom of the water main, or another separation approved by the Department. The reason is contamination: if the sewer leaks and the water main is ever under negative pressure, you do not want them sharing ground. ### Can I connect a French drain to the sewer? No. No, and this is one of the clearest rules in the book. N.J.A.C. 7:14A-23.6 requires new sewerage systems and extensions to be designed as separate systems in which all water from roofs, cellars, streets and other areas is excluded. Groundwater and roof water piped into a sanitary sewer is called inflow, and enough of it overwhelms the treatment plant and pushes untreated sewage into a river, which is the entire reason the rule exists. A French drain needs its own outlet: daylight at a lower elevation, a dry well sized for the volume, or a permitted connection to a storm system, which is a different pipe. ### Can I discharge drainage onto my neighbor's property? No. You should not, and it is where most drainage disputes start. A French drain or a regrade does not remove water, it relocates it, so the discharge point is part of the design rather than an afterthought. If there is no good outlet on your own land, that changes the design, and sometimes it means a dry well rather than a run to daylight. Water sent into a wetland or a stream carries its own separate consequences. ### Can I hire an excavator just to dig the trench for my electrician or plumber? Yes. Yes, and it is a normal way to run a job. We open the trench to the depth the trade requires, they lay their conduit, cable or pipe, we inspect the bedding with them, and then we backfill in lifts and put the surface back. That split is common on generator installs, detached garages, barns, pool equipment and service upgrades, where the electrician does not own a machine and does not want to. Two things worth agreeing before anybody starts: who decides the depth, which is the installing trade and the inspector rather than us, and who is on site when the trench is open, because an open trench is nobody's favorite thing to leave overnight. The rest of how this works, including backfill and billing, is on our page for trades. ### Can I drain my yard into the street in NJ? Your town decides. Sometimes, and it is the cheapest answer when it is available, which is why it is worth asking first. It is the town's system and their call, so the question goes to the municipal engineer or the DPW rather than being assumed. Two things commonly stop it even where the town would allow it: elevation, because if the house sits lower than the road the water will not run there on its own, and the condition of the curb line. Where the answer is no, the design usually moves to a dry well or seepage tanks on your own property, and that is a materially more expensive job. ### Can I clear or build on wetlands on my property? Usually No. Owning it is not the same as being allowed to disturb it, but regulated does not mean forbidden, and that difference matters because people talk themselves out of workable projects here. Freshwater wetlands transition areas extend up to 150 feet beyond the wetland itself, and excavating, filling and grading inside them is regulated by NJDEP under N.J.A.C. 7:7A. There are four routes through it. A Letter of Interpretation gets NJDEP to state where the wetland and its transition area actually are, which is often not where people assumed and sometimes settles the question on its own. General permits under N.J.A.C. 7:7A-5 authorize a defined list of limited activities. A transition area waiver covers certain work in the transition area beside intermediate or exceptional resource value wetlands, where the activity will not substantially impact the wetland and impacts have been minimized. Anything beyond those goes to an individual permit. What you should not do is guess: establish the line before you plan around it, because finding out afterwards is the expensive order to do this in. ### Can I build over a sewer line? Usually No. Practically, no, and the reason is access rather than structure. Somebody has to be able to dig that pipe up one day, and a building, a slab or a deck on top of it turns an ordinary repair into demolition. Where the line runs through an easement, the easement generally prohibits building over it outright. Before you design around a line you think you know the location of, get it located: what is on the plot plan and what is in the ground are not always the same. ### Can I fill in an old swimming pool in NJ? Your town decides. Whether a permit is required varies by municipality, so ask yours before anything starts. What does not vary is the method: the shell has to be broken up rather than simply buried, so water can drain through it instead of collecting in a bathtub under your yard. A pool filled without breaking the bottom becomes a settling, soggy patch a few years later, and it is a real problem at resale. Expect a few truckloads of clean fill, and expect the fill to be specified rather than whatever is cheapest to deliver. ### Can you directional bore through rock? Yes. Yes, but it gets expensive fast, because boring rock needs specialized bits rather than the standard head. Often the honest answer is that it is easier and cheaper to just open trench it, and we will tell you that rather than sell you the harder method. This is the main reason a bore quote carries a what-if line item for open cut: nobody can see a rock ledge or a boulder from the surface, so the plan for hitting one gets agreed before anybody starts. ### Can you excavate or trench in the rain? Sometimes. It depends entirely on what is going on. If it is an emergency, yes. An apartment building that cannot be left without water, a broken curb valve that will not let the water be shut off, a line that has to be back in service today: none of that waits for weather, and we work in it. If it is a standard scheduled job, we would rather shift the timeline than work a wet site, because digging in the rain makes a mess of a property that somebody then has to live with. Moving a scheduled job a few days is usually the cheaper decision for everybody. ### Can you excavate, trench or clear land in the winter? Sometimes. Winter is genuinely unpredictable in this trade. Some years we work straight through as though it is not happening. Some years we are off for a month. Emergencies still get done regardless. For a scheduled job in a deep frost we will usually reschedule, because the wear and tear in that cold is high on the equipment and higher on the crew, and neither of those produces good work. We do have ground heaters and frost blankets, and they are the right answer when a job genuinely must be done, but they add cost and time and they are not something to reach for on a job that could simply wait for a thaw. Full page: https://jwsrllc.com/can-i ## Permit thresholds, with the number that triggers each one ### Disturbing soil, almost any project Threshold: More than 5,000 sq ft of disturbance, about an eighth of an acre Who decides: Your county Soil Conservation District certifies the plan and has 30 days to grant or deny Worth knowing: Two exclusions are in the statute: clearing or grading for agricultural or horticultural purposes, and construction of a single-family dwelling that is not part of a subdivision, site plan, conditional use, zoning variance, planned development, or a permit application covering two or more dwellings. Disturbance is defined broadly and takes in stockpiles, drainage work and machine access tracks. ### Stormwater management (“major development”) Threshold: At least 1 acre disturbed, OR at least 0.25 acres of regulated impervious surface, OR 0.25 acres of regulated motor vehicle surface, or a combination reaching 0.25 acres Who decides: NJDEP rules at N.J.A.C. 7:8, administered through your municipal review Worth knowing: Lot size is not the test. Reconstruction counts: the runoff quality standards apply where a major development increases OR reconstructs a quarter acre or more of motor vehicle surface. A quarter acre is about 10,890 sq ft, which a long driveway reaches easily. ### Working inside the Highlands region Threshold: 88 municipalities across Bergen, Hunterdon, Morris, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex and Warren. Roughly 398,000 acres are the stricter Preservation Area, where disturbing an acre or more can be Major Highlands Development Who decides: NJDEP enters the approval path in the Preservation Area Worth knowing: That county list is every county we work in, so in our territory this is a routine check rather than an edge case. ### Wet ground anywhere near the work Threshold: Freshwater wetlands transition areas extend up to 150 feet beyond the wetland itself Who decides: NJDEP Worth knowing: Excavating, filling and grading inside a transition area are regulated. Identify wet ground before a machine is booked, not after. ### Extending or building sanitary sewer Threshold: Any sewer main, extension, interceptor, pump station or force main Who decides: NJDEP, through a Treatment Works Approval under N.J.A.C. 7:14A-22 and 23. This is a STATE permit, not a town permit Worth knowing: The engineer's report must be signed and sealed by a NJ Licensed Professional Engineer, plans and specs must be final, and hard copies with original wet-ink signatures and raised seals are required. Consent-form signatures more than a year old make the application deficient. ### Sending new flow to a treatment plant Threshold: The Capacity Assurance Program engages at 95% of permitted flow on a 12-month average; a moratorium can be imposed when existing plus allocated flows reach 100% Who decides: NJDEP. A sewer connection ban applies to the whole area served by the affected plant Worth knowing: NJDEP publishes each municipal plant's average flow as a percentage of permitted flow, so you can check before you buy the parcel. The exemption route is form WFR-001, and the exemption approval is itself a required item in the TWA package, so it comes first. ### How deep sewer pipe sits Threshold: At least 3 feet below finished grade, measured to the top of the pipe, for sewers, force mains and laterals Who decides: N.J.A.C. 7:14A-23.6 Worth knowing: The plumbing subcode separately sets 24 inches of cover over a building sewer. Real depth is usually set by the main you have to reach and the slope needed to get there. ### Septic systems Threshold: Systems handling 2,000 gallons a day or less, under N.J.A.C. 7:9A Who decides: Your LOCAL health department, municipal in some towns and county in others. NJDEP only enters where a design cannot meet the standard, through a Treatment Works Approval Worth knowing: A cesspool must be replaced at the time of a real property transfer, and since 2012-04-02 adding a septic tank in front of one is not allowed. But seepage pits and older systems that simply do not meet current standards are NOT required to be upgraded. ### Hauling excavated soil off site Threshold: Soil and fill recycling services require an A-901 license or a Soil and Fill Recycling Registration Who decides: NJDEP, under P.L. 2019 c.397, the Dirty Dirt Law Worth knowing: NJDEP reads the law as having NO self-generator exemption, so a contractor hauling dirt it dug itself is not automatically outside it. Virgin quarry products are excluded; excavated site soil is not. Worth asking any hauler about. ### Lead or galvanized water service lines Threshold: All lead service lines removed within 10 years of the 2021 law, meaning by July 2031; all service lines identified by then Who decides: Your water system, overseen by NJDEP. Inventories are due 10 July annually and consumer notices follow 30 days later Worth knowing: A galvanized service line is legally a lead service line under N.J.S.A. 58:12A-41. Who pays turns on ownership: investor-owned systems spread the cost across all customers via the BPU rate base, while government-owned systems may spread it OR assess it to the property. Post-1987 pipe cannot be assumed non-lead. ### Fire service lines and private fire mains Threshold: Designed, installed and tested to NFPA 24; the backflow device must be one approved for fire-protection service Who decides: Your local fire protection subcode official, plus NJDEP for the physical connection under N.J.A.C. 7:10-10 Worth knowing: A domestic-service backflow assembly is not interchangeable, the device must not reduce the effectiveness of the fire protection system, and testing must be by a holder of a valid NJ backflow prevention device tester certificate. ### Every dig, without exception Threshold: Call 811 for a mark-out before the work, typically about three business days ahead Who decides: New Jersey One Call Worth knowing: Free, required, and separate from any permit. Emergencies move faster under the emergency provisions. Full page: https://jwsrllc.com/nj-excavation-permits ## How a New Jersey town hires a contractor Bid and quotation thresholds effective 1 July 2025: - A town without a Qualified Purchasing Agent: quotes at $2,625, formal public bid at $17,500. The common case for a small borough. The quotation threshold is fixed at 15 percent of the bid threshold. - A town or school district with a Qualified Purchasing Agent: quotes at $7,950, formal public bid at $53,000. A town has to appoint a QPA and adopt a resolution to use the higher numbers, so this is worth knowing about the specific town you are dealing with. - A school district without a Qualified Purchasing Agent: quotes at $5,850, formal public bid at $39,000. Public School Contracts Law rather than the Local Public Contracts Law, and the numbers are different. - Municipal and county road contracts: quotes at n/a, formal public bid at $24,200. Road work under N.J.S.A. 27:14-1 and 27:16-16 uses its own threshold, calculated on the older formula. The trap is prevailing wage, which runs on a different pair of numbers: a contract awarded directly by a municipal government is covered at $19,375, but for a municipal utilities authority or a board of education the threshold is $2,000. Full page: https://jwsrllc.com/nj-public-contracting ## Public water and sewer, municipality by municipality Which New Jersey towns have public water, which have sewer, and which are wells and septic. Coverage percentages are the share of each municipality's land area inside a mapped service area, from NJDEP Purveyor Service Areas of New Jersey and NJDEP Sewer Service Areas. A percentage is not a guarantee about one address: what is under a specific property gets confirmed on site. ### Sussex County (24 municipalities) 2 of them have no public community water system at all, so those properties are on private wells, and 7 have no mapped sewer service area, so wastewater there is handled on site by septic, counted town by town from NJDEP's mapped service areas. - Andover Borough: About 65.8% of Andover Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Andover Boro WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 35.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Sussex Properties Inc Andover Twp WTP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/andover-borough) - the Andover Borough Water Department - Worth saying plainly because it trips people up constantly: Andover Borough and Andover Township are two different municipalities with two different answers. The borough has its own water department under NJDEP system 1901001. The township has no water department at all and is split among several private water companies. Same name on the sign, completely different phone call. - Andover Township: Only about 5.2% of Andover Township sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Lake Lenape WC, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 1.1% of Andover Township is inside a sewer service area (Andover Nursing Home), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/andover-township) - Andover Township is the hardest town around here to answer the question “who is my water company” in. The township's own Who to Call page lists four separate ones, Forest Lakes, Lake Lenape, Newton Water and the company serving Sussex Park Homes,. There is no township water department to fall back on, and no single office to ring. Before anything else happens on a service line here, read the name off your water bill, because that is the office with the curb key. - four different water companies, depending on which end of the township you are on, and no township water department at all - Branchville: Essentially all of Branchville's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Branchville WD. About 79% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Branchville Borough WTP aka SCMUA Paulins Kill STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/branchville) - the Branchville Public Works Water Department - Two of the borough's streets are getting new water main. Branchville closed a $1.9 million NJ Water Bank loan to replace aging cast iron water mains along Main Street and Wantage Avenue. Cast iron is the tell: a borough replacing it is replacing pipe old enough that the services tapped off it are usually older than anybody's records. If a property on either street has ever had a service line question, the window while that street is open is the cheapest it will ever be, and the worst time to find out is after new pavement goes down. - Branchville is stricter about this than its neighbors and puts it in writing: only the borough's Public Works Department may shut the water off to your property. Turning your own curb valve carries a fee per occurrence and leaves you on the hook for any leak it causes. So if you find water surfacing in the yard here, the first call is to Public Works, not a shovel. - Byram: Only about 8.8% of Byram sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Sparta Twp WU- Lake Mohawk, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 1.6% of Byram is inside a sewer service area (Musconetcong STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/byram) - Byram is unusual: there is no single township water utility. It is served by a patchwork of small water companies and lake-community associations, and Sparta's utility covers part of the township. The township keeps the current roster, and working out which one serves your address is genuinely the first step here rather than a formality. - a patchwork of small water companies and lake-community associations, with Sparta's utility covering part of the township - Cranberry Lake is one of only two lake communities in the county with an enforced septic maintenance ordinance - Frankford: Only about 0.1% of Frankford sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Branchville WD, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 1.1% of Frankford is inside a sewer service area (Sussex County Fairgrounds), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/frankford) - the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority, for sewer - Something people get wrong about Frankford: the plant that treats Branchville's sewage is not in Branchville. The county authority runs it on Route 206 in Frankford under its own NJDEP discharge permit. Frankford sat in the county authority's wastewater district as of the county's 2017 plan, and outside the sewered pockets along 206 this is septic country, where the drainage and the disposal field decide the job. - Franklin Borough: About 30.4% of Franklin Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 3 systems, the largest being Franklin Board of Public Works, and the rest is on private wells. About 45.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Sussex County MUA Upper Wallkill WPCF, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/franklin-borough) - the Franklin Borough Water & Sewer Department - Franklin names one line for watermain leaks, sewer line blockages, connections and meter questions, and a different one for billing. Calling the billing office about water in the ground is a wasted call, and it is an easy mistake to make from the website. - Fredon: Only about 2.8% of Fredon sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Aqua NJ - Bear Brook, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 1.4% of Fredon is inside a sewer service area (Highview Estates), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/fredon) - Fredon is one of the few Sussex municipalities that appears in neither county wastewater district in the 2017 plan, not the county authority's and not the Musconetcong. In practice that means septic, and on a septic property the disposal field and the ground it sits in are the job, not the pipe. Grading, drainage and where the water goes matter more here than anywhere a public sewer would have taken it. - any increase beyond the 19,950 gpd already permitted at Highview Estates on Route 94 requires a plan amendment, not just a permit - Green: Only about 5.5% of Green sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Aqua NJ - Tranquility Springs, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Green, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/green) - the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority, for sewer - Green sat in the county authority's wastewater district as of the county's 2017 plan, but district membership and a pipe at your curb are two different things, and most of Green is large-lot and rural. Whether your address is on a public line or on well and septic is the first thing worth settling before anything is priced, and it is not something to assume from a neighbor. - Hamburg: Essentially all of Hamburg's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Hamburg Board of Public Utilities. About 74.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Sussex County MUA Upper Wallkill WPCF, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hamburg) - the Borough of Hamburg Water & Sewer Department - Hamburg runs water and sewer as one borough department, which is the office we deal with for the public side of a connection. It is also our own yard's town: our shop is on Prince Street, so a Hamburg job is a short drive rather than a dispatch. - Hampton Township: Only about 1% of Hampton Township sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Stillwater Water District 1, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 2.7% of Hampton Township is inside a sewer service area (Martin Property), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hampton-township) - the Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority, which runs the Hampton Commons facility here - Hampton Township is arranged unusually. The county authority runs the Hampton Commons wastewater facility here, serving that development, yet Hampton itself appears in neither of the two county wastewater districts in the 2017 plan. So there is treatment inside the township without the township being a district member, and outside that pocket it is well and septic on large lots. Worth knowing that the county's 2017 plan listed Hampton Commons as built out, meaning that pocket of treatment was not sized to take on the rest of the township. Which side of the line your property falls on decides whether you are talking about a connection or a disposal field. - Hardyston: Only about 3.1% of Hardyston sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Hardyston Twp MUA, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 8.5% of Hardyston is inside a sewer service area (Sussex County MUA Upper Wallkill WPCF), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hardyston) - the Hardyston Township Municipal Utilities Authority - The HTMUA serves the Crystal Springs and Indian Field water systems rather than the whole township, so a good part of Hardyston is on private wells with no public connection at all. Which side of that line your address falls on decides most of the job. - Hopatcong: About 24.1% of Hopatcong's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Hopatcong WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 31.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Musconetcong STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hopatcong) - the Hopatcong Borough Water Utility - The borough water utility sits at 111 River Styx Road. Outside office hours it is worth asking them directly for the after-hours route rather than waiting until morning, because a service leak does not pause overnight. - Lafayette: Only about 1.4% of Lafayette sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Sparta Twp WU- Lake Mohawk, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 2.3% of Lafayette is inside a sewer service area (Schering Corp), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/lafayette) - Lafayette is one of three townships in the whole county, with Sandyston and Walpack, that the county's wastewater plan lists as having no public water supply system. Practically that means a private well, and it changes the job: there is no curb valve for anyone to shut and no utility that owns any part of the line. From the well to the house it is all yours, and all ours to fix. On the sewer side Lafayette sits in the county authority's district. - none, Lafayette is one of only three Sussex County municipalities with no public community water supply system at all - Montague: Only about 2.1% of Montague sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Montague WC, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Montague, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/montague) - New Jersey American Water - This one changed recently enough that plenty of Montague homeowners have not caught up. On June 1, 2026, New Jersey American Water completed its purchase of the Montague Sewer & Water Company's water and wastewater systems. The township posts it on its own utilities page. If your instinct during a leak is still to look up the old company, that instinct is out of date, and the number you want now runs 24 hours. - Newton: About 88.4% of Newton's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Newton Water and Sewer Utility, and the rest is on private wells. About 72.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Newton WWTP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/newton) - the Newton Water & Sewer Utility - The plant itself is being rebuilt in pieces. Newton closed a $7 million NJ Water Bank loan in 2025 to modernize the treatment plant's chemical room, which still ran 1990s feed systems, pumps, piping and tanks, to rehabilitate the sand filter system after media loss, corrosion and mechanical wear, and to replace the generator transfer switch and main electrical switch. The bank's own description is that all three target infrastructure that has reached the end of its useful life. None of that is in the street, so it changes nothing about a lateral, but it does tell you what condition the system behind your connection is in and that the utility is spending on it. Separately the town closed a $1.8 million loan to replace its water meters system-wide with remote-read units, which is the kind of change that surfaces leaks people did not know they had. - Newton runs its own water and sewer utility on a self-sustaining basis out of 39 Trinity Street, so one office covers both sides of a connection. Newton also publishes its lead and copper service line inventories going back to 2022, which is worth a look before you assume anything about the age of your line. - Ogdensburg: Essentially all of Ogdensburg's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Ogdensburg WD. There is no mapped sewer service area in Ogdensburg, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/ogdensburg) - the Ogdensburg Borough Water Department - The Water Department is reached on extension 2, and the borough lists DPW separately for a break or a repair in the ground. Two numbers, two different jobs, and the one you want for a leak is the second. - Sandyston: No public community water system delivers to Sandyston, so properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Sandyston, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/sandyston) - There is no public water in Sandyston to connect to. The county's wastewater plan names it, with Lafayette and Walpack, as one of three municipalities in Sussex with no public water supply system, and even the municipal building runs on its own well under a separate NJDEP noncommunity permit. So a water line problem here is a well line problem: no curb valve, no utility, and the entire run from the wellhead to the house is the homeowner's. - none, Sandyston is one of only three Sussex County municipalities with no public community water supply system - Sparta: About 34.7% of Sparta's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 3 systems, the largest being Sparta Twp WU- Lake Mohawk, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 2.5% of Sparta is inside a sewer service area (Sussex County MUA Upper Wallkill WPCF), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/sparta) - the Sparta Township Water & Sewer Utility - Sparta runs its own water and sewer as a township department rather than handing it to a separate authority, so one township office covers the wells, the storage tanks, the distribution piping and the hydrants. That makes the public side of a connection a single phone call instead of two. - three separate public water systems, Lake Mohawk, Sunset Lake and Highlands - Lake Mohawk is one of only two lake communities in the county with an enforced septic maintenance ordinance - Stanhope: About 63.1% of Stanhope's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Stanhope WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 50.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Musconetcong STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/stanhope) - the Stanhope Department of Public Works - Stanhope is one of the two boroughs that created the Musconetcong Sewerage Authority, alongside Netcong, by parallel ordinances, and that authority now treats wastewater for a string of towns beyond both of them. On the water side, Stanhope splits it in a way that catches people: the page labeled Water and Sewer is the billing office, while DPW runs the physical system. For anything in the ground, DPW is the call. - Stillwater: Only about 1.8% of Stillwater sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Stillwater Water District 1, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Stillwater, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/stillwater) - Water District #1 of Stillwater Township - Public water in Stillwater is not a township department and not a private company. It is a water district, Water District #1, running on its own wells, and it covers a slice of the township rather than all of it. Outside that district you are on a private well, which changes the job completely: there is no curb valve to shut, and the line running to the house is entirely yours. - Sussex: About 94% of Sussex's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Sussex WD. About 84.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Sussex County MUA Upper Wallkill WPCF, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/sussex) - the Sussex Borough Department of Public Works - Sussex Borough splits it the way Stanhope does, and it catches people the same way. Public Works, out on Brookside Avenue, runs the physical water and sewer system. Tax and Utility Collections on Main Street handles the bill. Water coming up out of the ground is a Public Works call. The borough's sewage goes to the county authority's Upper Wallkill plant rather than being treated in town. - Vernon: Only about 3.1% of Vernon sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Veolia Water NJ Highland Lakes, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 3.4% of Vernon is inside a sewer service area (Sussex County MUA Upper Wallkill WPCF), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/vernon) - the Vernon Township Municipal Utilities Authority - Vernon is set up differently from most of its neighbors: the sewer side sits with a separate body, the Municipal Utilities Authority created under Township Code Chapter 528, rather than with a township department. Worth knowing before you start calling, because the office that handles your sewer connection is not the one that handles your road opening. - The water side moved recently, and only for part of the township. Veolia already held a franchise for certain parts of Vernon, and on December 9, 2024 the township adopted Municipal Consent Ordinance No. 24-16 letting it expand that franchise to more properties and lay the pipe to serve them. The Board of Public Utilities approved it on August 13, 2025, effective the 20th, under docket WO25020098, with the street consent running fifty years from that date. So on a water service job here the first question is which side of that franchise line the property sits on: Veolia, another system, or a private well. - Walpack: No public community water system delivers to Walpack, so properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Walpack, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/walpack) - Walpack is the strangest municipality we cover and worth being straight about. It is the oldest township in Sussex, incorporated in 1731, and it had 7 residents at the 2020 Census. Most of it sits inside the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area after the federal government bought out the community in the 1960s for the Tocks Island Dam, which was never built. There is no public water system. If you own one of the few remaining private properties here, everything is well and septic and access is the whole job. - none, Walpack is one of only three Sussex County municipalities with no public community water supply system - Wantage: Only about 2.2% of Wantage sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Sussex WD, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Wantage, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/wantage) - Most of Wantage is on private well and septic, and the township's Board of Health code treats it that way: it requires a certificate for the sewage disposal system and a separate one for the potable water supply before it signs off. Where Wantage does connect, the sewage goes to the county authority's Upper Wallkill plant. On a well property there is no curb valve and no utility to call, so the entire line from the well to the house is the homeowner's to fix. ### Warren County (22 municipalities) 4 of them have no public community water system at all, so those properties are on private wells, and 5 have no mapped sewer service area, so wastewater there is handled on site by septic, counted town by town from NJDEP's mapped service areas. - Allamuchy: Only about 7.9% of Allamuchy sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Allamuchy Twp Water and Sewer, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 14.6% of Allamuchy is inside a sewer service area (Pequest Sewer Company), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/allamuchy) - the Allamuchy Township Department of Water and Sewer Utilities - Allamuchy's utility started life as a private company. The township's own page dates it to 1969 and names it as formerly the Pequest Water and Sewer Co., now run as a township department serving just over 4,000 residential and commercial customers, largely the Panther Valley side. The wastewater plant runs 0.2 to 0.3 million gallons a day against a 0.6 capacity, so there is real headroom there, which is not true everywhere in Warren County. - Alpha: About 93.7% of Alpha's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Alpha Municipal Water Works. About 61.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Phillipsburg STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/alpha) - the Alpha Municipal Water Works, run by the borough itself - Alpha is a small borough that never handed its water to anybody. The Alpha Municipal Water Works covers about 94 percent of the borough's land, which in a corner of Warren County where the private companies took over most systems is worth noticing. The sewer side is the opposite: roughly 61 percent of Alpha drains to Phillipsburg's plant rather than to anything of Alpha's. So the water is local and the wastewater is not, and which one your problem sits on decides who you are dealing with. - Belvidere: Essentially all of Belvidere's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Belvidere. About 79.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Belvidere Area WWTF, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/belvidere) - Belvidere is almost entirely on one system. NJDEP's mapped delivery areas put about 99 percent of the town's land inside New Jersey American Water's Belvidere service area, and the same purveyor covers about the same share of White Township next door. So the office that holds your curb key here is a private company rather than the town, and it is the same office either side of the municipal line, which is unusual enough to be worth saying. - one private company covering effectively the whole town, and the next township too - Blairstown: Only about 1.4% of Blairstown sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Township of Blairstown DPW, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Blairstown, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/blairstown) - Blairstown's only public water system is run by the Township of Blairstown DPW, and it is small: about 800 residents on 214 service connections (Blair Academy included), fed by three wells, with a little over four miles of main, roughly 100 valves and 38 fire hydrants. There is no township sewer utility at all; everyone outside that small village-area system is on a private well. - On lead service lines, the township water system is behind on its paperwork, not ahead of it: NJDEP cited Blairstown on January 3, 2024 for failing to submit the annual plan for replacing lead water service lines, and no public count of lead versus unknown lines could be verified for the system's 214 connections. The sale of the system was formalized when the Township Committee heard Resolution 2025-74 certifying emergent conditions on August 27, 2025. - The water infrastructure here is genuinely old and failing: Wells 1 and 2 date to 1896 and 1917, the lone 110,000-gallon steel tank at Blair Academy is over 100 years old, and the main treatment plant at 2 Crimson Road is offline because its greensand filter vessels corroded past the point of rehab. The township got a $1,500,000 estimate for repairs in June 2023 against a $204,000 water budget, which is why it is selling the whole system under the Water Infrastructure Protection Act. - Septic and well work in Blairstown goes through the Warren County Health Department in Oxford (908-475-7960), not a township office: the county reviews plans and physically inspects every new septic installation and new well, and a newly installed well has to pass water tests for metals and organic compounds before it can be used. - Franklin Township: Essentially all of Franklin Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Washington/Oxford. Only about 1.5% of Franklin Township is inside a sewer service area (Warren County Vocational School STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/franklin-township-warren) - Franklin Township has no water utility of its own. Where homes have public water, it comes off New Jersey American Water's Washington system (PWSID NJ2121001), the same interconnected system serving Washington Borough, Washington Township and Mansfield. It is one system: on September 16, 2025, a single main break at Prospect and Church Streets in Washington Borough put NJAW customers in all four towns, Franklin included, under a mandatory boil water advisory. - There is no sewer main to tap into here, even for large commercial projects. When the Lincoln Logistics warehouse development came to Franklin Township, NJDEP had to amend the Upper Delaware water quality plan in 2023 to create a 91.03-acre discharge-to-groundwater area so the three warehouses could run their own onsite subsurface sewage disposal system, sized for 16,496 gallons per day. - The tap water NJAW delivers into Franklin Township is all groundwater: seven wells located in Washington, Oxford and Mansfield, drawing from the Jacksonburg Limestone, Kittatinny Supergroup and Hardyston Quartzite aquifers, disinfected with chlorine only. In the most recent lead-and-copper tap sampling round (2023), the 90th percentile lead result was 1 ppb with 0 of 31 sampled homes over the 15 ppb action level. - Septic and well work in Franklin Township is not handled at town hall. The township's own website sends every well and septic question to the Warren County Health Department, which is where permits and records for a repair or replacement go. - Frelinghuysen: Only about 0.1% of Frelinghuysen sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Forest Manor Retirement Home, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 5.6% of Frelinghuysen is inside a sewer service area (Johnsonburg STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/frelinghuysen) - Nobody runs a sewer here. The 'Johnsonburg STP' sewer service area on NJDEP's statewide map covers about 620 acres of the township on paper, but in NJDEP's own data layer it has no NJPDES permit number (listed 'NA') and is typed as a groundwater-discharge planning area, not an operating plant. The only NJPDES-permitted treatment plant in the township is the Johnsonburg Presbyterian Camp's own facility (NJ0067857), and its service area is 20 acres of camp property. There is no municipal sewer main to tie into anywhere in Frelinghuysen. - Septic and wells in Frelinghuysen are administered at the county level: the Warren County Health Department reviews the plans, physically inspects every new septic and well installation, and requires lab water tests before a new well can be put into use. They also handle malfunctioning-septic complaints, and they warn homeowners that replacing a failed septic system runs into the tens of thousands of dollars. - There is no water utility in Frelinghuysen. NJDEP's Drinking Water Watch lists 10 active public water systems in the township and every one is a small on-site groundwater system: a school, a charter school, a pub, a camp, the Jenny Jump State Forest sites, and one business. The only system classified 'Community' is the Forest Manor Retirement Home's own single well (PWSID NJ2106304), privately owned, serving 97 residents through exactly one unmetered commercial connection. If you own a house here, you are on a private well. - In Frelinghuysen the septic and well permits come first, before the building permit. The township's own build procedure says to apply through the Warren County Health Department at (908) 475-7960, and you cannot get a Certificate of Occupancy without a Certificate of Compliance for the well and septic. Zoning applications also have to include the approved septic plot plan. - Greenwich: About 20.2% of Greenwich's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Aqua NJ - Phillipsburg, and the rest is on private wells. About 25.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Phillipsburg STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/greenwich) - Greenwich Township runs its own sanitary sewer collection system, but the sewage is treated in Phillipsburg: the township bought 300,000 gallons per day of treatment capacity at the Phillipsburg Sewer Treatment Plant under an agreement with the Town of Phillipsburg (plus another 13,000 gpd purchased later, for 313,000 gpd total in the Northern Sewer District). The residential sewer rate is $137.50 per quarter per home, set by Ordinance 113-2024 in December 2024. - The plant on the receiving end, the Phillipsburg STP, is permitted for 3.5 million gallons a day and serves five towns under contract: Phillipsburg, Alpha, Greenwich, Lopatcong and Pohatcong. So Greenwich sewer work ultimately depends on capacity Greenwich holds in a plant it does not own. - Public water in the developed part of Greenwich Township is Aqua New Jersey's Phillipsburg system (PWSID NJ2119001). I pulled Aqua's NJDEP service line inventory spreadsheet: 1,769 of its 11,061 service lines are at Stewartsville (Greenwich Township) addresses, and not one of them is lead - the whole system has exactly 1 confirmed lead line, at a Phillipsburg address. Greenwich's leftovers are 45 galvanized lines and 63 lines of unknown material, out of 459 galvanized and 580 unknowns system-wide (inventory certified by Aqua July 10, 2023). - Hooking a Greenwich Township property into the sewer means paying two towns: the connection fee equals whatever Phillipsburg's ordinance (Chapter 485-11) sets, and it is split half to Greenwich Township and half paid directly to the Town of Phillipsburg - no certificate of occupancy until both halves are proven paid. New construction on a street with a sewer main must connect within 30 days of the sewer becoming available. - Hackettstown: About 95% of Hackettstown's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Hackettstown MUA. About 57.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Hackettstown WPCF, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hackettstown) - the Hackettstown Municipal Utilities Authority - Hackettstown punches well above its size on utilities. The HMUA, created by the town in 1965, runs roughly 105 miles of water main and 95 miles of sewer collection into a plant rated at 3.3 million gallons a day, and it serves five municipalities across two counties: Hackettstown, Independence and Mansfield in Warren, plus Mount Olive and Washington Township in Morris. So the authority you deal with here is a regional one that happens to be named after the town. HMUA also draws the ownership line plainly, which not every utility does: they own the pipe from the main to the curb valve, and the customer owns it from the curb valve into the building. - Hardwick: No public community water system delivers to Hardwick, so properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Hardwick, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hardwick) - There is no public water system and no sanitary sewer anywhere in Hardwick Township. Every house runs on its own well and septic system. The township has put this in writing as recently as its 2021 affordable-housing report to the court, where the total lack of water and sewer infrastructure earned it a 77-unit durational adjustment. - Construction permits for Hardwick jobs are not issued in Hardwick either: the state Department of Community Affairs handles construction, electrical, plumbing, and fire sub-code permitting out of the local office in the Blairstown Municipal Building on Route 94. Anything that changes a home's footprint needs a Hardwick zoning permit first, from the part-time zoning officer at (908) 362-6528 x4. - The only regulated water systems NJDEP has on the books in Hardwick are small camp and institution wells, not utilities: 8 noncommunity systems drawing on 9 wells and zero surface intakes as of the state's 2003 inventory. They belong to places like Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco (the Boy Scout camp), Happiness Is Camping, the Princeton Blairstown Center, and the Little Hill Foundation. None of them serve homes. - Hardwick has no local health department. Septic and well permits go through the Warren County Health Department at 700 Oxford Road in Oxford, and the township's own FAQ tells homeowners that any septic repair or replacement most likely needs a county permit and has to meet current design standards, with a county Registered Environmental Health Specialist reviewing the work. - Harmony: Only about 0.2% of Harmony sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Aqua NJ - Harkers Hollow, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Harmony, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/harmony) - There is no municipal water utility in Harmony. The only public water is two small Aqua New Jersey well systems: Harkers Hollow, which runs two groundwater wells in one well station with 21 service connections serving about 40 people (0.002 MGD average day demand), and Brainards, one well and one treatment station with 60 connections serving about 135 people (0.007 MGD). Everything outside those two little clusters is private wells. - PFAS treatment is coming to Harmony's water. Aqua New Jersey's November 2025 infrastructure filing with the NJ Board of Public Utilities puts Brainards Well 17 on its PFAS projects list: a 38 gpm well serving 52 water services, getting two 2-foot-diameter ion exchange filters. - Harmony Township itself runs no water or sewer system. The township website's only water-related department is 'Wells & Septics,' and it sends residents straight to the Warren County Health Department for well and septic matters; septic and well records are pulled through the county's PARS online records system. - NJDEP's statewide service line inventory shows zero known lead service lines in either Harmony water system. Harkers Hollow reported all 21 of its service lines as non-lead. Brainards' 2024 submission reported 0 lead but 7 galvanized and 26 unknown-material lines out of 58 total, so most Brainards services still have to be verified, and any galvanized line that comes up in a dig is a replacement candidate under NJ's lead service line law. - Hope: No public community water system delivers to Hope, so properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Hope, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hope) - Nobody runs water or sewer in Hope Township. There is no municipal utility, no MUA, and no investor-owned water company here. The township's own Environmental Resource Inventory (February 2018) confirms there is not a single public community well in town, so every home runs on its own private well and its own septic system. That also means there is no lead service line inventory for Hope: there is no water utility to own service lines in the first place. - Hope's soils are rough on conventional septic. The township ERI's NRCS soil limitations table (Table 8) rates 38 of the 40 rated soil map units in town as 'Very limited' for septic tank absorption fields, with only two units rated anything better. In practice, most lots here need careful soil testing and often an engineered or elevated system rather than a standard bed. - Every drop of drinking water in Hope comes out of the ground. The township sits entirely on bedrock aquifers: about 52% of the town is over the Jacksonburg Limestone, Kittatinny Supergroup, and Hardyston Quartzite (the better-yielding carbonate rock, NJDEP rank C-B), while roughly 37% is over the Martinsburg Formation and Jutland Sequence and 12% over igneous and metamorphic rock, both ranked D, which NJDEP defines as a median well yield of 25 to 100 gallons per minute. Where you drill in this town changes what your well gives you. - Septic and well permits in Hope go through the Warren County Health Department, not town hall. The county reviews the plans for every proposed septic installation and physically inspects the installation, and it does the same for new wells, requiring a water analysis on every newly installed potable well before it goes into use. The county holds the permit until it calls the applicant to pick it up. - Independence: Only about 14.8% of Independence sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Hackettstown MUA, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 2.7% of Independence is inside a sewer service area (Hackettstown SSA), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/independence) - Public water and sewer in Independence come from the Hackettstown MUA, and only along the Hackettstown edge of town. HMUA runs 6 wells, 4 storage tanks, about 105 miles of water main, and pumps about 2.2 million gallons a day; on the sewer side it has about 95 miles of collection pipe feeding a treatment plant rated at 3.3 million gallons a day. If your house isn't near that edge, you're on a well and septic. - The township also runs its own tiny water utility, the Independence Municipal Utilities Authority (IMUA), which delivers drinking water to just 151 homes through two small systems called Valley View and Highlands. It's water only, no township sewer service, and it publishes its own annual water quality reports. - Hackettstown MUA's state-mandated service line inventory turned up 68 galvanized service lines system-wide, New Jersey's 2021 law counts galvanized as lead, and it borrowed $729,768 from the NJ Water Bank to replace them. HMUA's own website reports the replacement project was completed in April 2024, so on the HMUA-served edge of Independence the utility-side lead/galvanized problem has already been dealt with. - Township code Chapter 320 says if your building is within 250 feet of an HMUA or IMUA sewer, you must connect when the county Board of Health orders it, new construction has to connect before occupancy. And once you connect, the old wooden or metal septic tank, cesspool, or seepage pit has to be filled and capped with a concrete cover within 30 days. That decommissioning is excavation work. - Knowlton: No public community water system delivers to Knowlton, so properties here are on private wells. Only about 1% of Knowlton is inside a sewer service area (Knowlton WWTP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/knowlton) - The small sewer system that does exist is owned and run by the township itself, as the Township of Knowlton Municipal Sewer Utility (TOKMSU), covering the municipal wastewater treatment plant and its collection system under the Mayor and Committee. There is no MUA or private water company in town. - Septic and well permits in Knowlton go through the Warren County Health Department, not town hall. The county reviews the plans, physically inspects the installation, and will not let a new well go into service until water tests for metals and organic compounds come back. Knowlton's own meeting minutes show township septic and well work waiting on the county office. - There is no public water system anywhere in Knowlton, and public sewer reaches only about 122 acres of the whole township. Everything else runs on private wells and septic. That comes straight from the township's own 2020 Master Plan Reexamination Report. - The Knowlton WWTP on Simpson Road (Route 657) is a 140,000 gallon-per-day plant under NJPDES permit NJ0134864. It serves the commercial zone along Route 657 plus the existing homes inside that zone, and it does not discharge to a river: treated water goes into the ground through three infiltration/percolation lagoons. - Liberty: No public community water system delivers to Liberty, so properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Liberty, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/liberty) - There is no public water or sewer utility in Liberty Township; homes run on private wells and septic systems. The Warren County Health Department administers both: it reviews plans and physically inspects every new septic and well installation, and it requires water tests for metals and organic compounds before a new well can be put into use. The township itself lists the Warren County Board of Health (908-475-7960) as its health contact. - 7,090 of Liberty Township's 7,633 acres, about 93 percent, sit in the Highlands Preservation Area (only 543 acres are in the less-restrictive Planning Area). That means NJDEP Highlands rules ride on top of local permits for most land disturbance, well, and septic work in the township. Mountain Lake is the largest natural glacial lake in Warren County, and the township spent over a decade studying its watershed, ending in a $117,000 Clean Water Act 319(h) grant in 2003 to put filters on the storm drains at the lake plus another $47,628 in 2005 for stormwater monitoring. Drainage work around the Mountain Lake community gets real scrutiny, and the Environmental Commission publishes its own brochure on groundwater and non-point source pollution. - Liberty Township's construction office requires an electrical permit for well work, and the wiring trench from the house to the well must be left open for inspection before backfill. A house or addition permit also needs an NJDEP wetlands letter of exemption, Soil Conservation District approval once 5,000 sq ft of soil is disturbed, and prior county engineer approval for any driveway on a county road. - Lopatcong: About 49.6% of Lopatcong's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Aqua NJ - Phillipsburg, and the rest is on private wells. About 30.9% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Phillipsburg STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/lopatcong) - Lopatcong runs its own sewer collection system but has no treatment plant. Everything flows to the Phillipsburg sewage treatment plant under two contracts from 1998 and 1999 that reserve 676,000 plus 125,000 gallons a day, 801,000 gpd total. As of the state-adopted 2013 plan the township was actually sending about 506,000 gpd to a plant permitted for 3.5 million gpd, which discharges to Lopatcong Creek. - Aqua is currently replacing 733 customer-owned lead and galvanized service lines in its Phillipsburg-area system, backed by more than $12.4 million in NJ Infrastructure Bank loans, targeted for completion in 2026, at no direct cost to the customer. A Lopatcong homeowner with one of the town's 44 galvanized lines should call Aqua before paying anyone to dig up a water service. Aqua's lead service line inventory for the Phillipsburg system (NJDEP form DEP_10-S_00014.3, certified July 2023, posted August 2024) lists 11,061 service lines system-wide: 1 lead, 459 galvanized, 580 unknown. I mapped the inventory's own coordinates against the municipal boundary: 3,205 of those lines fall inside Lopatcong Township, and of them ZERO are lead, 44 are galvanized, and 153 are unknown. The lead and galvanized problem is concentrated in the old Town of Phillipsburg, not in Lopatcong's newer streets. (Per-town split is our point-in-polygon derivation from the filed inventory; the system-wide totals are Aqua's own certified figures.) - Public water in Lopatcong is Aqua New Jersey's Phillipsburg system, not a township utility. Aqua's wells sit close enough to the Delaware that the Highlands Council found they draw essentially all of their supply from the river through induced recharge, which is why the system had spare capacity for growth when the state reviewed it. - The system treating Lopatcong's sewage is old: Phillipsburg's own April 2025 evaluation says the collection system went in during the early 1900s and the treatment plant was built in the 1950s, with 70 miles of collection lines and 3 pump stations. Phillipsburg commissioned that report because it is weighing selling the sewer utility to a private operator; Lopatcong is one of four neighboring towns under service agreements, billed in bulk on quarterly flow, so a sale would eventually touch Lopatcong sewer bills. - Mansfield: Only about 12.6% of Mansfield sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Hackettstown MUA, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 6% of Mansfield is inside a sewer service area (Hackettstown WPCF), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/mansfield) - Public water and sewer on the township's east end (the Route 57 corridor by Hackettstown) comes from the Hackettstown Municipal Utilities Authority. HMUA runs six production wells, four ground storage tanks, two booster stations and about 105 miles of water main, pumping 2.2 million gallons a day; its sewage plant is rated 3.3 million gallons a day and currently treats about 2.1 MGD through 95 miles of collection pipe and three pump stations. HMUA itself lists Mansfield Township as one of the five municipalities it serves. - On the western end of the township the water franchise belongs to New Jersey American Water. The township took over and rebuilt a failing privately owned water system there, then sold it to NJ American Water, and the 2007 Wastewater Management Plan created a new sewer service area on that end for an adult retirement community. The township's April 2026 Master Plan Reexamination draft says there has been no substantial change to any of this since 2018. A second sewer plant also touches the township: the Pequest River MUA's Oxford sewage treatment plant serves portions of Mansfield along with Oxford, White and Washington Townships. The NJDEP-adopted wastewater plan puts the Mansfield population on that plant at 476 people (with zero growth planned, build-out is also 476), against a permitted plant flow of 0.500 MGD, and notes the plant has capacity to accept additional flow. - Mansfield Township's own Environmental Resource Inventory lays it out: other than two small pockets, the whole 30-square-mile township is on private septic systems or cesspools, and outside the Anderson area homes historically drew from private wells (Anderson had a public supply fed by two Township-owned wells). The one big sewered pocket, east of Airport Road and south of Rockport Road, pumps its sewage to the Hackettstown MUA's Water Pollution Control Facility; Diamond Hill Estates, a mid-1960s subdivision, is the other sewered spot. - The water system serving Mansfield's east end has already dealt with its old metal service lines: HMUA identified 68 galvanized service lines in its system and took a $729,768 NJ Water Bank loan to replace them. HMUA's own site says the replacement project was completed in April 2024 at a final cost of $588,684 - and it was located in Hackettstown proper, not in Mansfield. - Oxford: Essentially all of Oxford's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 3 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Washington/Oxford. About 40.9% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Oxford Service Area, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/oxford) - the Oxford Township Sewer Utility, which discharges to a county authority - Oxford is unusual in Warren County for having nearly all of its land inside a public water delivery area while only about 40 percent sits inside a sewer service area. The township runs its own sewer utility, but it does not treat its own sewage: the ordinance names the Warren County Pequest River Municipal Utilities Authority as the regional system it discharges into. So a connection here involves the township for the pipe and a county authority for what happens after, and outside that 40 percent it is septic. - Phillipsburg: About 81.9% of Phillipsburg's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Aqua NJ - Phillipsburg, and the rest is on private wells. About 94% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Phillipsburg STP. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/phillipsburg) - Phillipsburg splits water and sewer between a company and the town, and then ties them back together in a way worth knowing. Water is Aqua New Jersey, a private utility. Sewer is the town's. But the town computes your sewer bill from water consumption, and the meter readings behind it are taken by the water company rather than by the town. So one private company's reading drives a municipal bill, and a water leak on your side of the curb can show up twice. - a private company for water, Aqua New Jersey, while the town keeps the sewer side - Pohatcong: Only about 8.7% of Pohatcong sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Aqua NJ - Phillipsburg, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 7% of Pohatcong is inside a sewer service area (Phillipsburg STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/pohatcong) - Pohatcong has no treatment plant of its own. The township runs the local sewer system and pumps everything to the Phillipsburg Sewage Treatment Plant under contract, alongside Alpha, Greenwich, Lopatcong and Phillipsburg itself. Pohatcong holds 0.540 MGD of that plant's 3.5 MGD permitted capacity, and actual township flows ran about 0.201 to 0.328 MGD over 2009-2015. - Two water purveyors reach into Pohatcong: Alpha Municipal Water Works and Aqua NJ Water Company-Phillipsburg (the old Consumers NJ Water Company). Their mains only cover the built-up north end around Alpha and the Route 22 corridor; the rest of the township is on private wells. - Aqua's state-required service line inventory for its Phillipsburg system (PWSID NJ2119001, certified July 2023) lists 11,061 service lines; plotting the inventory's coordinates against the official municipal boundary, 798 of them sit inside Pohatcong Township: 712 confirmed not lead, 32 galvanized, 1 lead, and 53 whose material nobody has verified yet. Under New Jersey's 2021 lead service line law, the galvanized and lead lines must be replaced and the unknowns identified. - Septic and well work in Pohatcong goes through the Warren County Health Department, not town hall. The county reviews plans for new septic systems and wells, physically inspects the installations, and will not let a new well go into service until the water passes testing for metals and organic compounds. - Washington Borough: Essentially all of Washington Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Washington/Oxford. About 77.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Boro of Washington WTF, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/washington-borough) - the Borough of Washington Municipal Sewer Utility, run by the Mayor and Council - Washington Borough keeps its wastewater entirely in house. The municipal sewer utility runs the borough's own treatment plant and collection system under the direction of the Mayor and Council rather than an authority or a contractor, and it covers about 78 percent of the borough. Water is the opposite: effectively all of it comes from a private company. So the two halves of the same job answer to two very different kinds of organization here, and the sewer half is about as local as it gets. - Washington Township: Essentially all of Washington Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Washington/Oxford. Only about 7% of Washington Township is inside a sewer service area (Hawk Pointe), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/washington-township) - Washington Township has no sewer utility of its own. Three plants pick up small pieces of the township: the Borough of Washington's 1.5 MGD treatment plant (operated by Veolia, discharging to Pohatcong Creek) takes a strip of township homes along the borough line plus Warren Hills Regional High School; the Pequest River MUA's 0.5 MGD Oxford plant takes the Mine Hill Road development through the township's single pumping station; and the Hawk Pointe golf community off Route 31 runs on its own private 0.082 MGD plant that discharges to infiltration ponds and reuses effluent to water the golf course. Everything else in the township is on septic. - A large stretch of this township is coming off private wells and onto public water, and the reason is PFAS. New Jersey American Water applied to extend its Washington Township system to serve 142 properties whose private wells tested high for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, and closed an $8.2 million loan through the New Jersey Water Bank in February 2026 to build it: roughly 21,393 feet of ductile iron main, about 69 valves, 27 hydrants and 142 water service lines, along East and West Asbury-Anderson Road, Deer Run Avenue, Rymon Road, Tiffany Drive, Pacesetter Drive, Jockey Hollow Road, Diane Court, Thomas Court and Route 31. It needed a Highlands Council public health and safety waiver to happen at all, because Highlands Objective 2J4a otherwise prohibits extending a public water system into the Conservation Zone. If a house on one of those roads is in the set, the main is the utility's and the service line from the main to the house is the part somebody has to dig. - Lead pipe is not the story in this system: in the last round of lead tap sampling (2023), the 90th percentile was 1 ppb against the 15 ppb action level, and 0 of 31 sampled homes were over it. The utility says its mains contain no lead, but the service line from the main to an older house can still be lead or galvanized; NJ American Water keeps an address-by-address service line material map at newjerseyamwater.com/leadfacts. - Public water here is New Jersey American Water's Washington system (PWSID NJ2121001), and it is all groundwater: seven wells in the Washington, Oxford and Mansfield area pulling from the Jacksonburg Limestone, Kittatinny Supergroup and Hardyston Quartzite aquifers, disinfected with chlorine only. It is limestone water: hardness tested 216 to 406 ppm in 2023-2025, so hard-water scale in old galvanized lines is a real thing here. - NJ American Water is extending 21,000 feet (about 4 miles) of brand-new water main through the township along Route 31, East and West Asbury Anderson Road, Rymon Road, Tiffany Drive, Deer Run Avenue, Pacesetter Drive, Jockey Hollow Road, Diane Court and Thomas Court, a $12.6 million New Jersey Water Bank project, because private wells on those roads came up with PFAS. So there are streets here getting public water in front of houses that never had it, and every one of those houses needs a new service connection dug. - White: Essentially all of White's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 4 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Belvidere. Only about 8.1% of White is inside a sewer service area (Belvidere Area WWTF), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/white) - White Township does not have its own water utility. NJDEP's delivery areas put roughly 99 percent of the township inside New Jersey American Water's Belvidere system, which is administered from the town next door. On the sewer side only a small share of White sits inside a mapped service area, so most of the township is on septic, and that combination, public water in and a disposal field out, is the specific situation most jobs here turn out to be. - the Belvidere system, run by a private company from the next town over ### Morris County (39 municipalities) 2 of them have no mapped sewer service area, so wastewater there is handled on site by septic, counted town by town from NJDEP's mapped service areas. - Boonton Town: About 84.3% of Boonton Town's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Boonton WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 87.9% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Rockaway Valley Regional SA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/boonton-town) - Boonton holds one of the strangest arrangements in the state. The Boonton Reservoir, impounded behind a dam Jersey City finished building in 1904, sits here, and so does the treatment plant. None of it is Boonton's. Jersey City has owned those reservoirs since 1904 and pipes the water twenty-three miles east to its own residents. So the town hosts the infrastructure and drinks from somewhere else, which is worth understanding before anybody assumes who owns what near that water. - the Boonton Water Department for the town itself, alongside a reservoir and treatment plant that belong to a city twenty-three miles away - Boonton Township: Only about 6.4% of Boonton Township sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Boonton WD, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 14.7% of Boonton Township is inside a sewer service area (Rockaway Valley Regional SA), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/boonton-township) - Boonton Township runs its own small water utility (PWSID NJ1401002, office at 155 Powerville Road), but it produces no water of its own. It buys the entire supply wholesale from the neighboring Town of Boonton, whose sources are the Stoney Brook Reservoir in Montville plus four wells that physically sit in Boonton Township. The township's 2025 lead and copper round came back clean: 5 samples taken, none over the action level, next sampling due September 2026. - Public sewer barely touches the township. Boonton Township is a member of the Rockaway Valley Regional Sewerage Authority and the RVRSA's 60-inch trunk line runs through the southern edge along the Rockaway River, but the township's own master plan says connected development is quite limited and expansion is unlikely, because most of the township sits outside the RVRSA service area. Everyone else stays on wells and septic. - Boonton Township holds septic work to a higher standard than the state baseline. Every new individual system needs two septic tanks in series of equal size, a reserve area equal to 100% of the disposal field must be set aside for a future replacement field, and no septic system can be repaired or replaced without a permit from the Township Board of Health. Soil tests have to be witnessed by the township Sanitarian. - Butler: Essentially all of Butler's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Butler WD. About 94.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Two Bridges SA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/butler) - Butler is the odd one out on water in this whole region. Almost every public system around here draws from wells; Butler's own report describes a public community water system with one surface water intake, at the Kakeout Reservoir on Bubbling Brook Road, and that reservoir is not in Butler at all, it is in the Borough of Kinnelon. Surface supply behaves differently from groundwater, and it is worth knowing which one is under your street before anybody assumes. - a single surface water intake at the Kakeout Reservoir, which is unusual here, and the reservoir sits in the next borough - Chatham Borough: Essentially all of Chatham Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Chatham WD. About 79.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Molitor WPCF Madison Chatham Joint Meeting STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/chatham-borough) - the Madison-Chatham Joint Meeting, whose plant is in Chatham - The plant is here. The Molitor Water Pollution Control Facility on North Passaic Avenue is the Joint Meeting's principal office, and the Joint Meeting exists to run a sewerage system for two boroughs, Chatham and Madison, rather than for either one. Part of Chatham Township is on it as well. Being the borough that hosts the works does not mean the borough decides on its own, which is the first thing worth knowing when a connection needs approving. - Chatham Township: Essentially all of Chatham Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Short Hills. About 73.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Chatham Twp WPCP 1, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/chatham-township) - Chatham Township runs its own sewer utility. The Water Pollution Control plant is an activated sludge facility that treats 1 million gallons a day, and the township maintains over 30 miles of gravity sanitary sewer, over 2.6 miles of force main, and 4 wastewater pumping stations. Treated effluent is pumped through a force main directly to the Passaic River. - Not every street is sewered: the Green Village area still has homes on septic. In December 2020, NJDEP amended the sewer service area of the Chatham Township Water Pollution Control Plant (NJPDES NJ0020290) by 0.2 acres just to pick up four existing single-family homes on Green Village Road that were on septic, projected at 1,200 gallons per day of new flow. - Drinking water is New Jersey American Water, not a town utility. The township's own Natural Resources Inventory says fewer than 2% of its 4,012 housing units were on private wells as of 2010; the rest buy NJ American water. The township hosts one storage tank, a 1.42-million-gallon standpipe on Huron Drive, and has about 292 public fire hydrants, which the township pays NJ American roughly $110,000 a year to maintain. - Some of the township's water mains date to the 1930s and are actively being dug up. In March 2026, NJ American Water began replacing 1930s-era mains on Spring Street, Ferndale Road, and Wexford Road, along with the fire hydrants and utility-owned service lines on those runs, with final repaving planned for fall 2026. - Chester Borough: Essentially all of Chester Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Short Hills. There is no mapped sewer service area in Chester Borough, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/chester-borough) - Sewer in Chester Borough is the Borough's own operation, and it is tiny: the Chester Borough WTF at 111 Oakdale Road (NJPDES permit NJ0054101) is permitted at just 0.075 million gallons a day, and it discharges treated sewage to the ground, not to a stream. There is no regional sewer line out of town, even the Chester Springs Shopping Center on Route 206 runs its own separate 0.03 MGD package plant under its own permit (NJ0090115). - New projects here cannot count on borough sewer. The Chester Borough Center development (Mill Ridge Lane / Turkey Farm site on Route 24) had to get NJDEP to approve its own 15.2-acre discharge-to-groundwater sewer service area with a brand-new on-site treatment plant for a projected 26,125 gallons a day, because the whole borough sits in the Highlands planning area (fully conforming, with a Highlands Center designation) and the local subwatershed is already in deficit on net water availability. - New Jersey American Water is the water utility here, and it just spent about $1.8 million in Chester Borough (July-August 2026) swapping roughly half a mile of old 8-inch main for new 12-inch ductile iron on Perry Street, Maple Avenue and Old Gladstone Road, replacing 18 utility-owned service lines and upgrading 5 fire hydrants to improve fire flow. The service-line work is part of the company's push to get every lead and galvanized line out of the ground by 2031. - Sewer capacity in the borough is rationed: every property carries a fixed sewage allocation, and any change of use or building expansion needs a Borough capacity review (a $100 application fee plus $500 escrow) with flow numbers worked up by a licensed NJ Professional Engineer. A residential connection permit is $75, and you must pull a plumbing permit from the Borough for the connection and lateral before you tie in. The Borough's own form warns applicants to settle sewer capacity before spending money at the Planning or Zoning Board. - Chester Township: Only about 4.7% of Chester Township sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by NJ American Water - Short Hills, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Chester Township, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/chester-township) - There is no township water or sewer department to call. Health services are shared: since July 1, 2022, Randolph Township supplies the licensed health officer (paperwork side) and Roxbury Township handles the environmental field inspections, and even they don't touch septic, the township's page says septic inspection and plan review go to a third-party engineering firm (Boswell). - Something is about to change under these streets. On July 15, 2025 the township adopted Ordinance No. 2025-12 granting New Jersey Natural Gas a franchise to provide natural gas service and to use the township's roads and streets to do it, limited to fifty years, and the Board of Public Utilities approved it on March 4, 2026, effective the 11th, under docket GE25070390. Read it for exactly what it says and nothing more: the Board wrote that approval of the municipal consent does not constitute approval of any specific main extension or plan for service, so this is permission to serve the township, not a schedule for any particular road. What it does mean is that streets with no gas in them today may not stay that way, and a yard that has never needed a gas markout may start getting one. - The whole township sits inside the NJ Highlands Region, and 15,789 of its 18,695 acres, about 84 percent, are in the stricter Preservation Area, where NJDEP Highlands rules add a layer on top of normal permits for land disturbance, new wells, and septic density. The township is fully conforming with the Highlands Regional Master Plan and can issue certain Highlands exemptions itself. - Chester Township has no water utility of its own. The only public water mapped in the township is NJ American Water's Short Hills system, and it reaches only a small piece of the northeast corner, in the subwatershed shared with the Mendhams. The state Highlands plan for that corner says everyone outside those lines pumps their own well, and it pegs that subwatershed's published net water availability at a deficit of about 11,000 gallons per day, so wells there are drawing on stressed groundwater. - Septic work in Chester Township goes through the township Board of Health, but the actual inspections are farmed out to Boswell Engineering (908-879-6209). Since 1/1/24 the fees are: $220 per lot per day to witness soil logs, $990 inspection plus $50 application for a new or expanded system, $880 for an alteration without expansion, and $220 to $550 for repairs depending on whether it's a tank/line/D-box or the disposal field. - Denville: About 98.8% of Denville's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Denville Twp WD. About 62.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Rockaway Valley Regional SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/denville) - the township's own water department, and the Rockaway Valley Regional Sewerage Authority for sewer - Denville splits it the way a lot of Morris County does, and gets the better end of both. Water is the township's own, covering effectively the whole of it. Sewage goes to the Rockaway Valley Regional Sewerage Authority, formed in 1972 and now serving all or part of ten Morris County municipalities, which is a regional body rather than anything Denville controls alone. So the water side answers to the township and the sewer side answers to a board Denville shares with nine neighbors. - Dover: Essentially all of Dover's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Dover WC. About 84.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Rockaway Valley Regional SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/dover) - the Dover Water Commission, run by a Board of Water Commissioners - Two things about Dover are worth having written down before you need them. Water is not a department reporting to the town in the usual way, it is a Water Commission with its own Board of Water Commissioners meeting on Princeton Avenue. And the after-hours route for a water emergency is not the utility at all: the town says to call the Dover Police non-emergency line, which is not where most people would think to start at eleven at night with water coming up in the yard. - East Hanover: About 97.3% of East Hanover's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by East Hanover Twp WD. About 68.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Parsippany Troy Hills STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/east-hanover) - East Hanover runs its own municipal water system, the East Hanover Township Water Department (PWSID NJ1410001). The water comes from three deep groundwater wells in the Buried Valley Aquifer, and when demand spikes the township buys extra water from New Jersey American Water. The township treats for hard water with polyphosphate and disinfects with chlorine. - East Hanover has no sewage treatment plant of its own. Homes on sewer drain to the Parsippany-Troy Hills wastewater treatment plant under an intermunicipal agreement East Hanover signed on September 14, 1977. That plant is rated 36 million gallons a day, currently averages about 9 MGD, and discharges treated water where the Rockaway and Whippany Rivers meet. - The township's NJDEP service line inventory, signed by the Water Department superintendent in May 2024, counts 4,180 water service lines in town and every one of them is classified non-lead: zero known lead lines, zero galvanized, zero unknowns. So a water line replacement here is about age and leaks, not lead. - Township code makes sewer connection mandatory where a main can reasonably reach the building, and once a house ties in, the old septic system has to be filled in within 60 days under the Township Engineer's rules, with a completion certificate from the Water and Sewer Department. The same chapter bans putting stormwater, groundwater, roof runoff, or subsurface drainage into the sanitary sewer, so sump pumps and French drains cannot go to the sewer line. - Florham Park: About 91.3% of Florham Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 3 systems, the largest being Florham Park WD. About 76.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Florham Park Sewer Utility STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/florham-park) - the Borough of Florham Park, which owns both the water and the sewer - Florham Park publishes more about its own infrastructure than almost any town we cover, and it is worth reading before you dig here. Four wells on the Buried Valley Aquifer, two tanks holding 1,250,000 gallons between them, about 48 miles of distribution main, 485 hydrants, 1,250 valves and seven interconnections with other purveyors, serving 3,470 meter accounts across 7.6 square miles. The sewer side is the borough's too: one plant at 1.4 million gallons a day design flow, seven pumping stations, thirty miles of collection pipe, discharging to the Passaic. One caution though: owning a system is not the same as being the only one in town. Roughly two thirds of the borough sits in the municipal delivery area and about another quarter is New Jersey American Water, so the name on the bill still decides who you call. - Hanover: Essentially all of Hanover's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being South East Morris County MUA. About 80.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Hanover SA WWTP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hanover) - SMCMUA for water, which the township co-owns, and the Hanover Sewerage Authority for sewer - Hanover is the mirror image of Morris Plains. It is one of SMCMUA's four creating municipalities on the water side, and on the sewer side it does not borrow anybody's plant, it has its own authority and its own works taking about 80 percent of the township. So both halves are locally controlled here, which usually means fewer offices to coordinate on a connection and a shorter route to an answer. - Harding: Only about 16.2% of Harding sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by South East Morris County MUA, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 1.8% of Harding is inside a sewer service area (Woodland STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/harding) - Harding sits next to some of the most thoroughly served towns in the county and is nothing like them. SMCMUA's own report names Harding among the municipalities it serves from OUTSIDE its district rather than as a member, and the mapped delivery areas bear that out: roughly 16 percent of the township's land is inside any public water area at all, and under 2 percent inside a sewer service area. So the working assumption on a Harding property is well and septic, on a large lot, with the whole run belonging to the owner. Two miles away in Morristown the assumption is the opposite. - only the edges, about 16 percent of the township, and from an authority Harding is not a member of - Jefferson: Only about 14.9% of Jefferson sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Jefferson Twp Water Utility - Lake Hopatcong, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 7.9% of Jefferson is inside a sewer service area (Musconetcong STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/jefferson) - The gap between water and sewer here is the thing to know. Jefferson's water department serves around 4,000 customers across Oak Ridge, Lake Hopatcong and Vassar Road, but the sewer department serves about 900, and only in the Oak Ridge section. So a great many Jefferson properties have public water coming in and a septic system going out, which is a specific combination: the incoming service is somebody else's pipe to the curb and the outgoing side is entirely yours, tank, field and all. - a water department serving roughly 4,000 customers in the Oak Ridge, Lake Hopatcong and Vassar Road areas, drawing from wells around the township - Kinnelon: Only about 17.7% of Kinnelon sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Fayson Lakes WC Inc., so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 1.6% of Kinnelon is inside a sewer service area (Two Bridges SA), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/kinnelon) - Kinnelon is the second town on our map that hosts somebody else's reservoir. The Kakeout Reservoir sits here, on Bubbling Brook Road, and it is Butler's: Butler draws its whole supply from it and sells water back into Kinnelon along with the High Crest Lake part of West Milford. Alongside that, the Fayson Lakes community has its own water company running four wells of its own, and the borough runs a system too. Three systems between them still only reach about eighteen percent of Kinnelon's land, so most of this borough is on private wells with no curb valve at all. - three of them across less than a fifth of the borough, and the reservoir inside Kinnelon belongs to Butler - Lincoln Park: About 56.5% of Lincoln Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Lincoln Park WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 43.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Two Bridges SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/lincoln-park) - Sewage from Lincoln Park goes to the Two Bridges Sewerage Authority, formally the Pequannock, Lincoln Park and Fairfield Sewerage Authority, whose regional treatment plant sits right in Lincoln Park (mailing address PO Box 188, Lincoln Park 07035) and has run since 1979. Design capacity is 7.5 million gallons a day, rated to reach 10 MGD, and treated effluent discharges to the Pompton River. The borough itself handles local sewer billing: a flat $150 a year for a single-family house. - Lincoln Park runs its own municipal Water Department (34 Chapel Hill Rd), but it doesn't treat its own supply. Except for the Jacksonville section, the whole borough drinks purchased water sourced from the 29.6-billion-gallon Wanaque Reservoir, bought through the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission and delivered by Passaic Valley Water Commission of Little Falls. The Jacksonville area is on a separate small system with its own posted water-quality report. Latest posted test tables show lead at a 3.62 ppb 90th percentile, well under the 15 ppb action level, and the borough flushes its hydrants twice a year. - Lincoln Park's NJDEP service line inventory for the main water system (PWSID NJ1416001, filed January 2022 by the DPW Director) counts 3,670 service lines: zero lead, 44 galvanized, and 3,626 non-lead, with the borough committing to replace 4 of the galvanized lines per year. Reading the address rows, the 44 galvanized lines cluster in one neighborhood: Riveredge Road, Oak Street, Kopp Street, Doric Street and Crestwood Court. - Septic work in Lincoln Park is permitted by the borough's own Health Department at 34 Chapel Hill Road, not the county. Posted fees: $150 for a new septic location and installation, $50 for an alteration or abandonment, $25 for a repair, $200 for soil logs/PIT test on new construction, and $50 for a re-inspection. - Long Hill: Essentially all of Long Hill's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Short Hills. About 34.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Long Hill Twp STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/long-hill) - New Jersey American Water, for both water and sewer since 2020 - Long Hill sold its sewer system, and the reasons are on the record. The township's wastewater collection and treatment infrastructure dated from the 1930s, the plant was frequently exceeding its capacity and discharging partially untreated effluent to the Passaic River, and voters approved a sale by referendum in 2019. The Board of Public Utilities signed off and New Jersey American Water became the provider in 2020, which made one company responsible for both the water and the sewer here. Since then it reports investing $31.5 million in the system, including $4.3 million cleaning and lining about 30,000 feet of sewer main. Useful to know before assuming anything about the age of what is under your street: some of it has been relined and some has not. - Madison: Essentially all of Madison's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 3 systems, the largest being Madison WD. About 95.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Molitor WPCF Madison Chatham Joint Meeting STP. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/madison) - the Madison-Chatham Joint Meeting - Madison's sewage has been a shared enterprise for more than a century, and the borough's own history is precise about why that is notable: “In the first joint venture of its kind in New Jersey, the site for a disposal plant was approved by the Councils of Chatham and Madison on September 20, 1910.” The Joint Meeting still exists and still runs the plant for both boroughs. So a connection here answers to a body older than most of the state's utility authorities, and not to the borough alone. - Mendham Borough: Essentially all of Mendham Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Short Hills. About 37.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Mendham Borough STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/mendham-borough) - Water in Mendham Borough comes from New Jersey American Water, not the town. The borough sold its water system to NJAW in 1992, and it is now part of NJAW's Short Hills interconnected system. NJAW supplies 1,819 customers in the borough, and the four original borough wells are still active, running about 120 to 150 days a year to let the aquifer recharge. - Sewer only reaches the village core: 1,448.3 acres, or 37.8 percent of the borough, sits inside the sewer service area, which hugs the Historic District along and north of Main Street. Everything outside that line is on septic, and the borough has no plans to extend sewer. The plant has headroom, running at 0.285 MGD against its 0.45 MGD permit, about 63 percent of capacity. - Sewer is the borough's own operation: the Mendham Borough Water Reclamation Facility at 35 Ironia Road is an activated sludge plant permitted at 0.45 million gallons a day, and the collection system it serves runs 126,288 linear feet of sewer line, roughly 24 miles, with 4 lift stations. - Some water mains here date to the 1960s and NJAW has been steadily replacing them. A 2021 project on Mountainside Road replaced 600 feet and rehabilitated 2,200 feet of 12-inch cast iron main installed in the 1960s. The same year a separate $3 million NJAW project replaced about 6,400 feet of aging main, 8 hydrants and 97 utility-owned service lines along Route 24 from Cherry Lane to Hilltop Road, and in early 2026 NJAW installed another 720 feet of 8-inch ductile iron on Mountainside Road between Ironia Road and Mountain Avenue. - Mendham Township: About 44.7% of Mendham Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Short Hills, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 3.9% of Mendham Township is inside a sewer service area (Mendham Golf and Tennis Club), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/mendham-township) - Mendham Township itself owns two small sanitary sewer systems: Mendham East, built in 1987 for the Drakewick subdivision, and Mendham West, built in the late 1980s for the Brookrace development, each with its own treatment plant. Day-to-day operation is contracted to Veolia Water New Jersey. Together they serve only about 200 homes, roughly 3% of the township; the report puts East's permitted flow at a 22,000 gpd monthly average (40,000 gpd max) and West's at 30,200 gpd max. - The township is trying to sell both of its sewer systems, and the record of how it got there says more about the pipe than any brochure would. Mendham Township runs two sewer utilities, East and West. It certified emergent conditions under the Water Infrastructure Protection Act by Resolution 2025-150 on 29 September 2025, NJDEP denied that certification on 13 November 2025, and the township came back with a revised assessment: the township engineer's Sanitary Sewer System Emergent Condition Analysis of 6 January 2026 found three emergent conditions, including that the owner of the system meets the definition of a significant noncomplier under the Water Pollution Control Act. NJDEP approved the second certification by letter on 20 April 2026, for emergent condition #2 as to the West plant and #4, lack of historical investment, as to the system. A request for qualifications went out on 7 May 2026 and drew exactly one response, from New Jersey American Water, which the committee designated a qualified respondent on 22 June 2026. As of those minutes a contract was scheduled to come back to the committee in late September 2026. If you are on Mendham East or West sewer, the owner of the main may not be the township much longer, and that is worth confirming before anybody quotes you a connection. - Where public water exists in Mendham Township, it comes from New Jersey American Water's Short Hills system (PWSID NJ0712001), which names Mendham Township among its communities served. It is a big regional system: 25 wells, 4 surface intakes, plus purchased water, delivering an average of 35 million gallons a day system-wide. Only part of the township is inside the delivery area, so a large share of homes here run on private wells instead. - A 2025 engineering study the township commissioned concluded its sewer systems meet two 'emergent conditions' under NJ's Water Infrastructure Protection Act. The collection mains are about 40 years old with documented inflow-and-infiltration problems the engineers tie partly to broken or leaking sewer laterals, and the East pump station has only one working pump where state rules require two. Recommended capital work is about $240,000 a year against a $20,000 annual sewer capital budget, and East-system homes already pay $1,085 to $5,524 a year in sewer charges depending on bedroom count. - Septic and well permits run through the Mendham Township Board of Health directly (973-543-4555), not a county agency. When a home on a well changes hands, the Board requires a Certificate of Potable Water Supply backed by NJDEP-certified lab testing to its published standards (total coliform none detected, nitrate 10 mg/l max, lead 0.015 mg/l max, plus a corrosivity test), and its forms list includes an Application for Certificate of Continued Use of a Septic System and a Septic Tank Water Tightness Test Certification. - Mine Hill: About 72.8% of Mine Hill's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Mine Hill Twp WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 33.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Rockaway Valley Regional SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/mine-hill) - Mine Hill runs its own water utility (Mine Hill Township Water Department, PWSID NJ1420001), but it doesn't own a single well or treatment plant. Every gallon is bought wholesale from the Morris County MUA through one interconnection on Randolph Avenue at the town line; MCMUA pumps it from the Alamatong well field in Randolph and the Flanders Valley well field in Roxbury. - Sewer here is a township-run collection system that sends flow to the Rockaway Valley Regional Sewerage Authority under a 1987 contract that started at 37,000 gallons a day and grew to 94,000. In the mayor's 2015 update, only the 'top of the hill' had sewers (Williams Street, Central Avenue and Pine Street already had mains), the town was using about 55,000 of its 94,000-gallon allocation, and the plan was to add roughly 300 more homes; the 'flats' on the west side had no sewers at all. - The township has finished its state-required lead service line inventory and found zero lead service lines in the system. In the August 2024 round of lead and copper sampling, all 20 samples came back under the limits. So on the water side, replacing lead lines is not the work here; it's copper and plastic services off a purchased-water system. - Sewer capacity in Mine Hill is contractually capped, so a new connection depends on township gallonage allocation, not just a permit. NJDEP's 2020 adopted plan maps 633.8 acres of sewer service area in town (490 acres assigned to the RVRSA plant), puts Mine Hill's metered flow at 0.0832 million gallons a day, and finds that full build-out would push the RVRSA plant 0.046 MGD past its 12 MGD permitted capacity, meaning the township would have to amend its RVRSA contract to get more flow. - Montville: About 37.7% of Montville's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Montville Twp MUA, and the rest is on private wells. About 55.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Parsippany Troy Hills STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/montville) - Montville sits on its own water supply and says so precisely. Three wells pump an average of 1.9 million gallons a day, and over 90 percent of the township's drinking water comes from the Towaco Valley Aquifer, a rechargeable basin more than four and a half miles around and 200 to 250 feet deep that runs under the Towaco section and on into parts of Lincoln Park and Kinnelon. Six tanks hold up to 6.5 million gallons. The quirk worth knowing is that public sewer reaches slightly more homes here than public water does, roughly 6,500 against 6,000, and the sewage is treated at Parsippany-Troy Hills' plant rather than in Montville. So on a given street the sewer question and the water question can genuinely have different answers. - three township wells drawing better than nine tenths of the supply from one aquifer beneath Towaco - Morris: Essentially all of Morris's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being South East Morris County MUA. About 78.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Woodland STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/morris) - the Morris Township Water Pollution Control Utility - Morris Township treats a good deal of its neighbors' sewage. The township utility runs about 102 miles of sewer line, eight pump stations and two treatment plants, Butterworth at 3.3 million gallons a day and Woodland at 2.0, and beyond its own 7,300 residential and 50 commercial connections it serves most of Morris Plains, part of Randolph, Harding Township and Morristown. If you are tying into a sewer anywhere in that ring, this is the utility whose standards the work is held to even though it is not your town. - Morris Plains: Essentially all of Morris Plains's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being South East Morris County MUA. About 93.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Butterworth STP. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/morris-plains) - SMCMUA for water, which the borough co-owns, and a neighbor's plant for sewer - Morris Plains is the smallest of the four municipalities that created SMCMUA, so it part-owns a water authority considerably larger than itself. Its sewage goes somewhere else again: about 93 percent of the borough drains to the Butterworth plant, which is Morris Township's. Two different arrangements on the same property, one where you have a seat at the table and one where you are a customer, and they are worth telling apart before anybody starts asking who approves what. - Morristown: Essentially all of Morristown's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by South East Morris County MUA. About 95.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Morristown STP. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/morristown) - the Southeast Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority for water, and the town's own plant for sewer - Morristown is one of four municipalities that created SMCMUA, the largest water supplier in Morris County, serving about 67,000 people on roughly 8.7 million gallons a day. Worth knowing what is in the pipe: unlike almost everywhere else we work, a share of this water is surface water, drawn from the Clyde Potts Reservoir and treated by membrane filtration and activated carbon, with the rest from wells in the glacial and Brunswick aquifers. On the sewer side the town runs its own plant. Effectively the whole town is served both ways, so the question here is almost never whether there is a main, it is what is under the street and how old it is. - Mount Arlington: About 77.6% of Mount Arlington's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 4 systems, the largest being Mount Arlington Boro DPW Main, and the rest is on private wells. About 58.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Musconetcong STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/mount-arlington) - Mount Arlington does not produce its water. The borough's own report is plain about it: since the year 2000 the entire Mount Arlington system has been supplied by bulk water purchased from the Morris County Municipal Utilities Authority, whose source is groundwater from the Alamatong well fields in Randolph and Chester and from Flanders Valley. The borough still owns and runs the pipe in the ground, including the small former Mt. Arlington Service Company area around Kadel Drive, so the distribution side is local even though the water is not. - no water of its own, the entire borough system has been bulk water bought from the Morris County MUA since 2000 - Mount Olive: About 31.7% of Mount Olive's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 16 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - ITC, and the rest is on private wells. About 22.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Musconetcong STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/mount-olive) - the Hackettstown Municipal Utilities Authority, for sewer, which is based in another county - Mount Olive is the most fragmented town on our whole map for water. NJDEP's delivery areas put sixteen separate systems inside the township, and none of them covers most of it. On the sewer side the authority is the HMUA, which is based in Hackettstown, in Warren County, so neither answer here is a Mount Olive office. Working out which system your address is actually on is not a formality in this township, it is the first real step. - sixteen separate water systems, more than any other municipality we cover - Mountain Lakes: About 97.8% of Mountain Lakes's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 4 systems, the largest being Mountain Lakes WD. About 71.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Parsippany Troy Hills STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/mountain-lakes) - The name is literal and slightly misleading. Mountain Lakes has nine man-made lakes, created when Herbert Hapgood began building a planned community here in 1911, and the borough drinks from none of them: the water system is groundwater from four wells. The other thing that matters underground is the vintage. Roughly six hundred stucco houses went up by 1923 and the borough became independent in 1924, so a great deal of what is buried here was laid for a development that is now a century old. Sewage, meanwhile, goes to Parsippany-Troy Hills' plant rather than to anything of the borough's own. - four borough wells, which is to say the town does not drink from its own lakes - Netcong: About 86.6% of Netcong's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Netcong WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 86.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Musconetcong STP. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/netcong) - the Musconetcong Sewerage Authority, which Netcong co-founded - Netcong is small and its sewerage authority is not. The Musconetcong Sewerage Authority was created by parallel ordinances of two boroughs, Netcong and Stanhope, to treat their sewage, and it now takes wastewater from a string of municipalities well beyond them at a plant rated 4.31 million gallons a day. So the authority behind a connection in this little borough is a regional one that Netcong helped start rather than one it was handed. - Parsippany-Troy Hills: About 88.9% of Parsippany-Troy Hills's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Parsippany-Troy Hills WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 83.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Parsippany Troy Hills STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/parsippany-troy-hills) - Parsippany runs its own water utility, the Parsippany-Troy Hills Water Department (PWSID NJ1429001). The water comes from 19 active groundwater wells inside the township, drawing on a glacial sand and gravel aquifer, and homes east of I-287 get supplemental water from the Jersey City Reservoir at Boonton in the summer months. The township also keeps emergency interconnections with Boonton, Denville and Mountain Lakes. - Unusual for New Jersey and worth saying on the page: the township sewer utility maintains the sanitary lateral from the cleanout in front of the house all the way to the plant, so a Parsippany homeowner's responsibility ends at the cleanout, not at the main. The utility asks residents with connection problems to call 973-428-7592 before hiring a contractor. Sewer is also township-run. The Parsippany-Troy Hills Sewer Utility operates roughly 370 miles of sewers and 25 pump stations, plus its own advanced wastewater treatment plant with an average daily flow of 9 million gallons, discharging at the confluence of the Rockaway and Whippany Rivers. The plant is a regional one: it also treats wastewater from Mountain Lakes, East Hanover, Montville and part of Denville under agreement. Do not publish a plant capacity number. The township's current sewer page says the plant is 36 MGD, but older township material and a search snippet of the prior page version say 16 MGD, and I could not reconcile the two from primary sources. The 9 MGD average daily flow is consistent everywhere; stick to that. - Parsippany's 2026 service line inventory, posted on the township site, lists 14,116 water service lines and not one of them is lead: my line-by-line tally of the 70-page inventory PDF found 13,885 non-lead lines and 231 categorized G (galvanized), zero lead and zero unknown. New Jersey's replacement law counts galvanized as lead service lines, so those 231 homes are the ones getting township replacement notices. - The galvanized problem clusters in Mt. Tabor, the township's oldest neighborhood. The Water Department has a phased Mt. Tabor Water Infrastructure Replacement program mapped street by street, with replacement years running from 2023 (under contract) through 2029, and the map's service line legend is specifically for lines flagged Galvanized Requiring Replacement. - Pequannock: About 63.9% of Pequannock's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Pequannock Twp WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 69.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Two Bridges SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/pequannock) - The township's own wells are being brought back after PFAS. Pequannock closed a $4.9 million NJ Water Bank loan to build a treatment facility for Wells 1 and 2 on Dunn Place: Well 1 had been taken offline, and restoring it with treatment on both wells is meant to end the township's reliance on bulk water purchases. That is plant work rather than street work, but it is the reason the water on the township system is changing source, and it is worth knowing if anybody on that system has been told their supply was bought in. - What comes out of the tap in Pequannock is a mixture, deliberately. The township's own page explains it: three wells in the northern section draw from the Buried Valley Aquifer and feed a Blending Facility on West Parkway, where the well water is blended with Newark city water at about a 40 percent ratio to bring the sodium and hardness down. Newark water arrives through two interconnections, at Hopper Avenue and Jefferson Street. Cedar Crest Village is a separate system again. On the sewer side the township is one of three members of the Two Bridges Sewerage Authority, which has been running since 1979. - township wells blended with Newark city water, plus a separate system at Cedar Crest - Randolph: Essentially all of Randolph's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Randolph Twp Public Works Dept. About 57.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Rockaway Valley Regional SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/randolph) - Randolph is where a lot of Morris County's water actually comes out of the ground. The Morris County MUA's Alamatong wellfield sits in Randolph and Chester, and that is the source behind the bulk water sold to Wharton, Mount Arlington and others. Randolph then buys from that same authority for its own township system. The north side of the township is a different answer again, served by the Dover Water Commission. So the ground here supplies half the county and the township still is not on one system. - the township's own system across most of it, Dover's commission in the north, and water bought back from a county authority whose wells are here - Riverdale: About 62.1% of Riverdale's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Riverdale Boro WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 82.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Two Bridges SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/riverdale) - Riverdale drinks surface water, which is unusual for this region and comes from a long way off. The borough system is supplied through the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission's Wanaque system, a body created in 1916 that runs the largest regional water supply in the state: more than 95 square miles of watershed, two major reservoirs and a filtration plant rated at 210 million gallons a day. Riverdale is also a link in somebody else's chain, because Pequannock's Cedar Crest system buys that same water through Riverdale. On the sewer side the borough is on the Two Bridges authority. So neither half of the job here is answered inside the borough line. - a borough system fed from the Wanaque reservoirs rather than from any well in Riverdale - Rockaway Borough: Essentially all of Rockaway Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Rockaway Boro WD. About 84.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Rockaway Valley Regional SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/rockaway-borough) - Rockaway Borough runs its own water utility (Rockaway Borough Water Department, PWSID NJ1434001) as part of the borough DPW. It pumps three groundwater wells plus one backup well in the Quaternary aquifer, treats the water with air stripping, activated carbon filtration and disinfection, and delivers it to 3,026 homes and businesses, including parts of Rockaway Township and Denville. - Sewage from Rockaway Borough goes to the Rockaway Valley Regional Sewerage Authority, whose regional plant is designed to treat 12 million gallons a day, currently handles an average of 9 to 11 MGD, and discharges to the Rockaway River. The borough is one of nine member towns on the RVRSA system. - The borough well field is a federal Superfund site: the municipal wells sit in an EPA-designated sole source aquifer that was contaminated with PCE and TCE from old industrial and dry-cleaning operations in town. The borough built a granular activated carbon treatment plant that has been running since July 1981, treating about 900,000 gallons of raw well water per day, and EPA put the site on the National Priorities List in September 1983. Cleanup systems (soil vapor extraction) were still operating as of 2023-2024. - Rockaway Township: About 33.5% of Rockaway Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 4 systems, the largest being AWO&M - Picatinny Arsenal, and the rest is on private wells. About 29.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Rockaway Valley Regional SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/rockaway-township) - the Rockaway Township Municipal Utility, which runs both the water and the sewer - Rockaway Township has something no other town on our map has: a working federal arsenal with its own full utility inside the township line. American Water took a 50 year contract in August 2014 to own and operate the potable water, service water and wastewater systems at Picatinny, serving over a thousand buildings across 6,500 acres, and the numbers are municipal in scale, four wells, eleven pumping stations, nine tanks and around forty miles of potable main, with another thirty miles of service water main and a 2 million gallon a day treatment plant, plus nineteen sewage lift stations on the wastewater side. None of that is the township's. For everything outside the fence the Municipal Utility runs water and sewer together out of Mount Hope Road, which at least makes one office the answer for both. - the township's own utility, plus a completely separate federal system inside Picatinny Arsenal - Roxbury: About 49.8% of Roxbury's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 4 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Roxbury, and the rest is on private wells. About 51.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Ajax Terrace WPCP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/roxbury) - Roxbury is one of the towns where the honest answer to who supplies your water is a question back: which end of the township are you on. The township's own environmental page says it plainly, that residents are served either by New Jersey American Water or by Roxbury Township, and that all public water in Roxbury comes from wells rather than a reservoir. Groundwater sources sit closer to the work we do than surface water does, which is one reason well-head and main protections come up more here. - two suppliers depending on where in the township you are, New Jersey American Water or Roxbury Township itself - Victory Gardens: Essentially all of Victory Gardens's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Dover WC. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Rockaway Valley Regional SA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/victory-gardens) - Everything buried in Victory Gardens went in at once, and it went in during a war. The borough's own history is blunt about it: in 1941 the federal government took 91 acres out of Randolph Township for a 300-unit housing project for war industry workers, and “the federal government paid for all infrastructure.” Streets, sewers, utilities, all of it, laid as a single wartime project. It did not become its own borough until 1951. It is the smallest municipality in Morris County by both size and population and the most densely built, and it owns neither of its utilities: water comes from the Dover Water Commission and sewage goes to the regional authority. So on any dig here the working assumption is 1940s pipe under a very tight site. - Washington Township: About 22.7% of Washington Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 5 systems, the largest being Washington Twp MUA - Hager, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 8.2% of Washington Township is inside a sewer service area (Schooley s Mountain WTP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/washington-township-morris) - Water and sewer here are run by one township agency, the Washington Township Municipal Utilities Authority (WTMUA) at 46 E. Mill Rd in Long Valley. Its water system is 33 miles of distribution line, 5 elevated tanks holding 1.85 million gallons, and 14 operating wells with a max deliverable capacity of 2.554 million gallons a day; average day is 0.74 MGD. The sewer side is two separate systems: Schooley's Mountain (5 pumping stations, 24 miles of interceptors, a treatment plant built in 1967 rated 500,000 gallons a day, discharging to the South Branch of the Raritan) and Long Valley (2 pumping stations, 12 miles of interceptors). - The MUA is replacing main on the Schooley's Mountain side. It closed a $1.8 million NJ Water Bank loan to replace roughly 2,000 linear feet of aging water main in the Schooley's Mountain section of the system, near Fawnridge Drive. That is a short run of pipe for the money, which is normal for main replacement in developed streets, and it is the same section of the system the MUA inherited from the old Schooley's water company. - The township's sewer mains are actively being rebuilt: the WTMUA's Sewer System Repair and Rehabilitation Program, a $2,193,019.50 project financed through the New Jersey Water Bank (the DEP/NJ Infrastructure Bank low-interest loan program), is rehabilitating sanitary sewer main piping and manholes across the collection system that dates back to the 1967 Schooley's Mountain plant era. Separately the MUA has a $5.45M NJ Water Bank-financed PFAS ion-exchange treatment project for wells SM10-SM17. - The MUA runs two separate public water systems, a legacy of the two private water companies (Schooley's and Hager) it absorbed: Schooley's Mountain (PWSID NJ1438004) and Hager (PWSID NJ1438003). Per the newest annual water quality report, all customer water currently comes from 12 wells, and part of the Schooley's Mountain system gets polyphosphate treatment to sequester iron and manganese; the report also discloses the system exceeded the secondary limit for manganese. - Lead service lines are almost a non-issue in this system. The MUA's September 8, 2025 lead service line inventory lists (by our tally of the address table) 2,715 service lines, and only 2 are lead, both on the customer side in Long Valley (2 Ryan Court and 10 East Maple Ave), plus 10 galvanized lines; every utility-side line is copper or plastic. Note the CCR also discloses the MUA missed the state's July 11, 2025 deadline to file this inventory and its replacement plan, drawing Notices of Violation for both systems. - Wharton: Essentially all of Wharton's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Wharton WD. About 98.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Rockaway Valley Regional SA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/wharton) - Wharton runs its own water rather than buying all of it, but not purely. The borough's own report describes three wells drawing from an unconfined Glacial Drift Aquifer, all chlorinated, with two of them also run through an air stripper to pull out volatile organic compounds, and since April 2001 the borough has additionally purchased water from the Morris County MUA. An unconfined aquifer is the kind that responds quickly to what happens at the surface, which is a good reason to take backfill and restoration seriously on any open trench here. - three borough wells on the Glacial Drift Aquifer, topped up with water bought from the Morris County MUA since 2001 ### Hunterdon County (26 municipalities) 10 of them have no mapped sewer service area, so wastewater there is handled on site by septic, counted town by town from NJDEP's mapped service areas. - Alexandria: Only about 1.2% of Alexandria sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by NJ American Water - Frenchtown, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 1.5% of Alexandria is inside a sewer service area (Salvation Army Camp Tecumseh Wastewater Treatment Plant), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/alexandria) - Bethlehem: Only about 0.4% of Bethlehem sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Hampton Borough WD, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Bethlehem, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bethlehem) - Bethlehem Township has no public water or sewer at all. The township says it plainly: all homes have wells and septic. Every water line job here runs from a private well, and every drain line ends at a septic system. - Bloomsbury: Only about 17.5% of Bloomsbury sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Aqua NJ - Phillipsburg, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 3.1% of Bloomsbury is inside a sewer service area (Fawn Run Development), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bloomsbury) - Bloomsbury is a borough with a real downtown and no public sewer to serve it: the borough's proposed wastewater plan, submitted to NJDEP in 2025, describes a densely developed residential and commercial core that relies on septic systems. - The proposed plan's build-out analysis found room for only four additional septic systems in the Highlands Preservation Area. - Califon: About 56.5% of Califon's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Aqua NJ - Califon, and the rest is on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Califon, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/califon) - Califon has no public sewer at all: the county wastewater plan says the borough has no public wastewater systems or sewer service areas, so every house is on septic. Water is different: Aqua New Jersey's Califon system covers more than half the borough. - Clinton Town: About 79.7% of Clinton Town's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Clinton WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 52.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Town of Clinton STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/clinton-town) - The Town of Clinton runs its own water and sewer: 8 wells and a 2.3 million gallon per day sewer plant. Its pipes also reach parts of Clinton Township, Franklin Township, Union Township and Lebanon Borough, and it treats High Bridge's sewage under contract, so a Clinton utility bill turns up well outside the town line. - Two NJ Water Bank loans are changing the system. A $3.2 million loan covers West Main Street water main phases 3 and 4, including replacing the river crossing at the South Branch of the Raritan and extending main toward Leigh Street. A $7.4 million loan, closed in September 2026, pays to bring Wells 3A and 16 to one PFAS treatment plant. The loans have closed; the PFAS plant has not been built yet. - Clinton Township: About 27.4% of Clinton Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 5 systems, the largest being Clinton WD, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 6.7% of Clinton Township is inside a sewer service area (Town of Clinton STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/clinton-township) - Sewer here is a set of small islands rather than a network. NJDEP maps only about 6.7% of Clinton Township inside a sewer service area, and the pieces are telling: the largest share goes to the Town of Clinton's plant, and the rest is institutional, a correctional facility, an insurance company campus, a couple of private communities. Public water is not much broader at roughly 27%, nearly all of it Clinton Water Department, with the remainder split between a treatment center, a care center and slivers of High Bridge and NJ American Water. Outside those pockets this is well and septic country. - The Clinton Township Sewerage Authority rebuilt the pump station that carries the Beaver Brook service area, closing about $2 million in NJ Water Bank loans for it and finishing in early 2026. The new station is a fresh wet well with submersible pumps, an influent manhole, a valve chamber with a discharge flow meter and a precast electrical building with new controls, and the authority says it is sized to carry the current high school and to support future development in the Beaver Brook Sewer Service Area rather than just to replace what was there. Capacity built ahead of development is worth knowing about if you are planning anything that needs a connection in that area. - Delaware: Only about 2.6% of Delaware sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Rosemont WC, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Delaware, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/delaware) - Delaware Township is wells and septic almost everywhere. The Delaware Township MUA provides water and sewer only to homes and businesses in the village of Sergeantsville, at 2024 rates of $136 a quarter for water and $254 for sewer, $390 for one unit of both. - East Amwell: Only about 0.8% of East Amwell sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by NJ American Water - Raritan, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in East Amwell, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/east-amwell) - Flemington: Essentially all of Flemington's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Flemington WD. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Raritan Twp MUA STP. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/flemington) - Flemington pumps its own water. The borough water department runs eight wells in the Brunswick Shale, some inside the borough and some in neighboring Raritan Township. Sewage goes to the Raritan Township MUA plant. - Franklin Township: Only about 0.9% of Franklin Township sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Clinton WD, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Franklin Township, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/franklin-township-hunterdon) - Frenchtown: About 96.9% of Frenchtown's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Frenchtown. About 49.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Frenchtown Boro STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/frenchtown) - Frenchtown's water is now NJ American Water, drawn from the Brunswick aquifer, on a system that state source water records still list under the old Frenchtown Water Department name. Sewer is still the borough's own treatment plant, with about half the borough's land mapped inside its service area. - Glen Gardner: About 55.4% of Glen Gardner's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Glen Gardner WD, and the rest is on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Glen Gardner, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/glen-gardner) - Glen Gardner has a small borough water department, but public sewer is essentially absent, and the borough's proposed wastewater plan, submitted to NJDEP in February 2024, proposes no future expansion of the sewer service area. - The same proposed plan removes 50.5 acres from the sewer service area, the land tied to the Eastern Concrete Materials quarry, and its build-out analysis found room for zero additional septic systems in the Highlands Preservation Area. - Hampton Borough: About 57.2% of Hampton Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Hampton Borough WD, and the rest is on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Hampton Borough, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hampton-borough) - Hampton runs its own water department, but public sewer is essentially absent: NJDEP maps under 1% of the borough inside a sewer service area, and what exists belongs to private sites like apartment complexes. - The borough reset its water rates in the first quarter of 2026 under Ordinance 01-2026: a $95.25 base charge plus $8.90 per thousand gallons. - High Bridge: About 65.8% of High Bridge's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by High Bridge WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 97.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Town of Clinton STP. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/high-bridge) - High Bridge pumps its own water from five wells, and nearly the whole borough is inside a mapped sewer area, but the sewage does not stay here: it is treated at the Town of Clinton's plant under contract. - The borough borrowed $1.7 million through the NJ Water Bank for well upgrades, including a generator. That is source work, so it does nothing to the service lines themselves. - Holland: Only about 2.3% of Holland sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Aqua NJ - Riegel Ridge, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 5.7% of Holland is inside a sewer service area (Milford STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/holland) - Kingwood: Only about 0.1% of Kingwood sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by NJ American Water - Frenchtown, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Kingwood, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/kingwood) - Kingwood Township has no public sewer: the township says all homes have septic systems and that they are the responsibility of each homeowner. Public water is limited to a sliver of the township. - The township's own septic guidance says tanks must be inspected every two to three years and pumped as needed. - Lambertville: Essentially all of Lambertville's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Lambertville. About 56.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Lambertville Sewerage Authority, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/lambertville) - Lambertville's water is Veolia, covering essentially the whole city. Sewer is the Lambertville MUA, which also takes Stockton's flow and flow from across the river in Bucks County. - The MUA closed a $2,049,850 NJ Water Bank loan to rehabilitate the North Union pump station after Tropical Storm Ida damaged it. That station moves gravity sewer flow to the treatment plant, so it matters to every lateral upstream of it. - Lebanon Borough: About 78.6% of Lebanon Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Clinton WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 67.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Readington Lebanon SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/lebanon-borough) - Lebanon Borough's sewage is treated by the Readington-Lebanon Sewerage Authority, where the borough holds 241,000 gallons per day of capacity, with the borough's own sewerage authority maintaining the pipes in town. Water comes from the Town of Clinton. - The borough sewerage authority's own rules warn that laterals here may be up to several hundred feet long, mostly PVC or ABS plastic. On a long lateral the cost of a repair is set by the length of the run and where it fails, not by the house. - Lebanon Township: Only about 2% of Lebanon Township sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Senator G.W. Hagedorn Psyciatric Hospital, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in Lebanon Township, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/lebanon-township) - Milford: About 59.1% of Milford's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Milford WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 51.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Milford STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/milford) - Milford's borough water department draws from two wells in the Brunswick Aquifer, one 230 feet deep and one 255 feet deep, according to its 2026 water quality report. About half the borough's land is mapped inside the service area of the Milford sewage treatment plant. - Raritan Township: Essentially all of Raritan Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Raritan. About 30% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Raritan Twp MUA STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/raritan-township) - Most of Raritan Township's water is NJ American Water, but sewer is the Raritan Township MUA: a 3.8 million gallon per day plant, 11 pump stations and a 61 mile collection system. NJDEP maps only about 30% of the township's land inside the sewer service area, so a Raritan Township address on public water can still be on septic. - Readington: About 42.7% of Readington's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 10.3% of Readington is inside a sewer service area (Readington Lebanon SA), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/readington) - Readington's public sewer is the Readington-Lebanon Sewerage Authority, formed in 1976 with a plant in Whitehouse. The township holds 939,000 gallons per day of its capacity, but NJDEP maps only about 10% of Readington's land inside a sewer service area, so septic is the norm across most of the township. - Stockton: About 79.1% of Stockton's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Stockton WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 36.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Lambertville Sewerage Authority, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/stockton) - Stockton has its own small water department, but its sewage leaves town: flow from Stockton is treated at the Lambertville MUA plant, alongside Lambertville's own and flow from Bucks County, Pennsylvania. About 37% of the borough's land is mapped inside that sewer service area. - Tewksbury: Only about 4.5% of Tewksbury sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by NJ American Water - Short Hills, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 2.7% of Tewksbury is inside a sewer service area (OLDWICK VILLAGE WATER POLLUTION CONTROL PLANT), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/tewksbury) - Tewksbury is mostly wells and septic, with two small sewer systems: New Jersey American Water's Pottersville plant and the Oldwick Village plant. - The township has put the Oldwick Village plant under a Capacity Assurance Program that does not allow new connections beyond those already planned, so living next to the Oldwick sewer does not mean a house can tie into it. - Union: Only about 7.6% of Union sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Clinton WD, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 10.1% of Union is inside a sewer service area (Town of Clinton STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/union) - West Amwell: Only about 2% of West Amwell sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Veolia Water NJ Lambertville, so most properties here are on private wells. There is no mapped sewer service area in West Amwell, so wastewater here is handled on site by septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/west-amwell) - West Amwell has no public water or wastewater utilities of its own. The Music Mountain development next to Lambertville is served by Veolia; the rest of the township is on individual wells, and septic systems. - The township's 2025 housing plan puts the land needed per home to stay within the groundwater nitrate standard at between 6.0 and 6.2 acres, depending on the watershed, which is why new septic lots here are large. ### Somerset County (21 municipalities) Public water and a mapped sewer service area both reach somewhere in every one of Somerset County's municipalities, though coverage inside a town is rarely complete. That comes from NJDEP's mapped service areas, checked town by town. - Bedminster: About 39.7% of Bedminster's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Short Hills, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 6.2% of Bedminster is inside a sewer service area (Environmental Disposal Corporation WTP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bedminster) - Only about 6% of Bedminster's land is mapped inside a sewer service area. Environmental Disposal Corp, which NJDEP lists as a sewer facility in the township, merged into New Jersey American Water on December 31, 2023, so that sewer system now belongs to the same private company that supplies water in Bedminster. - Bernards: Essentially all of Bernards's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Short Hills. About 53.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Harrison Brook STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bernards) - Water in Bernards is NJ American Water, but sewer belongs to the Bernards Township Sewerage Authority, which covers about 54% of the township's land. In one logged case, a lateral pipe separated four feet from the cleanout was recorded by authority staff as the homeowner's responsibility. - The authority set the sewer connection fee at $8,242 for its fiscal year running December 1, 2024 to November 30, 2025. On a septic-to-sewer conversion, that fee sits on top of the digging. - Bernardsville: About 66% of Bernardsville's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Short Hills, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 13.5% of Bernardsville is inside a sewer service area (Borough of Bernardsville STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bernardsville) - Bernardsville runs its own sewer utility, but NJDEP maps only about 14% of the borough inside a sewer service area, so septic is common here. Water is NJ American Water. - Connecting to borough sewer takes a permit application with a drawing showing the house, the sewer route and the distance to the nearest manhole, plus a road opening permit. The connection fee is charged per service unit, and an existing house can pay it in equal annual installments over three years at 8% interest. - Bound Brook: Essentially all of Bound Brook's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 85.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Middlesex County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bound-brook) - Bound Brook no longer owns its sewers. New Jersey American Water acquired the borough's sewer collection system on August 11, 2022, and the Middlesex County Utilities Authority still does the treatment. Water is NJ American Water too, so both pipes under a Bound Brook street now belong to the same private utility. - Under the BPU consent order for the sale, NJ American Water's sewer rate for Bound Brook was set at $6.40 per thousand gallons a month plus $5 a month, which is how a sewer bill from a water company came to exist here. - Branchburg: Essentially all of Branchburg's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 51.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Somerset Raritan Valley SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/branchburg) - Branchburg charges its own township sewer rates, and about half the township's land is mapped inside the Somerset Raritan Valley Sewerage Authority's service area; water is NJ American Water. Ordinance 2022-1420 raised sewer rates and set how houses without a water meter are charged: $1.40 a year for each gallon per day of projected flow. - Bridgewater: Essentially all of Bridgewater's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Raritan. About 81.9% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Somerset Raritan Valley SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bridgewater) - Most of Bridgewater drains to the Somerset Raritan Valley Sewerage Authority, but not all of it. Under a 2009 interlocal agreement certain Bridgewater properties were connected to Bound Brook's sewer system, and since NJ American Water bought that system, the BPU has approved an agreement covering those Bridgewater homes on the former Bound Brook pipes. - Far Hills: About 20.9% of Far Hills's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Short Hills, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 5.2% of Far Hills is inside a sewer service area (Environmental Disposal Corporation WTP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/far-hills) - Franklin Township: About 94.7% of Franklin Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Franklin Twp DPW. About 46.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Middlesex County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/franklin-township) - Franklin Township in Somerset runs its own water utility for much of the township, alongside NJ American Water, and sends sewage directly to the Middlesex County Utilities Authority. Under half the township's land, about 47%, is mapped inside the sewer service area, so septic is still common in parts of the township. - Green Brook: Essentially all of Green Brook's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 74% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Middlesex County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/green-brook) - Green Brook's sewage reaches the Middlesex County Utilities Authority through the Plainfield Area Regional Sewerage Authority, which runs a 12 million gallon per day regional interceptor system. About 74% of the township's land is mapped inside a sewer service area, part of it assigned to the Somerset Raritan Valley authority instead. - Hillsborough: Essentially all of Hillsborough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 34.9% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Somerset Raritan Valley SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hillsborough) - Sewage from the sewered part of Hillsborough is treated by the Somerset Raritan Valley Sewerage Authority, a regional plant running 23.0 MGD of secondary advanced treatment that has served Branchburg, Bridgewater, Hillsborough, Manville, Raritan, Somerville and Warren since 1958. What matters on a service job is what SRVSA does not do: it states plainly that it does not own the collection system of any township it serves, so the main in front of the house, and the records of it, belong to the municipality rather than the authority. - Who owns the sewer in part of this township changed recently. Hillsborough adopted Ordinance 2024-06 on June 11, 2024, granting municipal consent to New Jersey-American Water to construct, lay, maintain and operate wastewater mains in the portion of the township formerly served by the Borough of Manville, and NJAWC petitioned the BPU to approve it on September 9, 2024 under docket WE24090674, with the public hearing held January 7, 2025. The notice states that no increase in rates results from the petition. If the property sits in that former-Manville pocket, the utility to call about the main is not the same one it was two years ago. - Public water is close to universal here and it is one company: NJDEP's mapped purveyor service areas put about 99.8% of Hillsborough's land area inside a delivery area, essentially all of it New Jersey American Water's Raritan system. - Manville: Essentially all of Manville's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 72.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Somerset Raritan Valley SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/manville) - The borough is out of the sewer business. New Jersey American Water completed its purchase of Manville's wastewater collection system on November 1, 2024 for $6.5 million, taking over service for roughly 4,300 customers, and committed to a minimum of $10 million in wastewater system improvements over the ten years that follow. A homeowner with a lateral problem here calls the utility, not borough hall, and a contractor working in the street is coordinating with a regulated water company rather than a public works department. - Ten years of committed main work is worth knowing before anybody digs a lateral on an old street: a line that is fine today can sit in a block scheduled for replacement, and the cheapest version of that job is the one that happens while the street is already open. - Millstone: About 91% of Millstone's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 46.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Somerset Raritan Valley SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/millstone) - Montgomery: Essentially all of Montgomery's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Raritan. About 24.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Pike Brook, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/montgomery) - Montgomery's water is NJ American Water, but the township runs its own sewer plants, including Pike Brook and Stage II, and only about 24% of the township's land is mapped inside a sewer service area, so plenty of Montgomery houses are on septic. - Both township plants are being rebuilt. Montgomery closed a $14.6 million NJ Water Bank loan to upgrade and expand Pike Brook to about 854,000 gallons per day, and Stage II, damaged in Hurricane Ida, is getting an $18.2 million flood protection rebuild with $17 million financed through the Water Bank. The township describes Stage II as under construction. - North Plainfield: Essentially all of North Plainfield's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 93.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Middlesex County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/north-plainfield) - North Plainfield is almost entirely sewered, about 94% of its land, and the flow travels through the Plainfield Area Regional Sewerage Authority's interceptors to the Middlesex County Utilities Authority for treatment. PARSA's system serves about 135,000 people in eight municipalities. Water is NJ American Water. - Peapack and Gladstone: Essentially all of Peapack and Gladstone's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Short Hills. About 31.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Environmental Disposal Corporation WTP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/peapack-and-gladstone) - About 31.5% of Peapack-Gladstone, 1,162.8 acres, lies inside the sewer service area, and the Highlands Council's draft review (January 2026) says there are no plans to expand it; areas outside rely on septic. Water is NJ American Water across nearly the whole borough. - Sewage goes to the NJ American Water EDC plant, formerly Environmental Disposal Corporation, which the same draft puts at about 61% of its 2.1 million gallon per day permitted flow. Outside the sewer area, the draft's septic density targets are 15, 10 and 9 acres depending on the Highlands zone. - Raritan Borough: Essentially all of Raritan Borough's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 93.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Somerset Raritan Valley SA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/raritan-borough) - Raritan Borough is almost entirely on public sewer, treated by the Somerset Raritan Valley Sewerage Authority, with water from NJ American Water. - SRVSA's connection fee is $2,405 per equivalent dwelling unit, effective November 1, 2025. A new connection pays that to the authority on top of anything the borough charges. - Rocky Hill: About 69.5% of Rocky Hill's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Rocky Hill WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 69.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Stage II, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/rocky-hill) - Rocky Hill's borough water system runs on a single well: Well #2 on Young Drive, drilled into the Brunswick Formation, per the 2026 water quality report. - Somerville: Essentially all of Somerville's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 92.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Somerset Raritan Valley SA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/somerville) - Somerville sold its sewers. NJ American Water completed its acquisition of the borough's wastewater system on October 3, 2023, and it also supplies the water, while the Somerset Raritan Valley Sewerage Authority treats the flow. - SRVSA closed a $33 million NJ Water Bank loan for a facility that treats wastewater from Somerville's sewer overflow point during major storms and discharges it to the Raritan River, which is meant to keep heavy rain from sending untreated overflow out at that connection. - South Bound Brook: Essentially all of South Bound Brook's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by NJ American Water - Raritan. About 74.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Middlesex County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/south-bound-brook) - South Bound Brook's sewage goes straight to the Middlesex County Utilities Authority, which names the borough among the Somerset County towns it serves directly. Water is NJ American Water, and about 74% of the borough's land is inside the mapped sewer area. - Warren: Essentially all of Warren's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Raritan. About 93.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Somerset Raritan Valley SA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/warren) - Warren Township has run its own Sewer Department since July 1, 2022, when the old sewer authority was dissolved. Where the sewage goes depends on the neighborhood: the Middlebrook area drains through Bridgewater to the Somerset Raritan Valley Sewerage Authority, while the Berkeley Heights service area is treated at Berkeley Heights' plant. - Watchung: Essentially all of Watchung's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Raritan. About 97.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Middlesex County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/watchung) - Watchung's sewage mostly travels through the Plainfield Area Regional Sewerage Authority to the Middlesex County Utilities Authority, but NJDEP also maps part of the borough to the Berkeley Heights plant, so which plant a Watchung lateral ultimately feeds depends on where the house is. ### Passaic County (16 municipalities) Public water and a mapped sewer service area both reach somewhere in every one of Passaic County's municipalities, though coverage inside a town is rarely complete. That comes from NJDEP's mapped service areas, checked town by town. - Bloomingdale: About 20.9% of Bloomingdale's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Bloomingdale WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 29.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Two Bridges SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bloomingdale) - Bloomingdale does not produce its own water. The borough buys it in bulk from the Butler Water Department, which draws from the Kakeout Reservoir over in Kinnelon, and NJDEP maps only about 21% of the borough inside a water delivery area, so plenty of houses here are on wells. - Because the water is bought from Butler, Butler's problems arrive here too: the borough's 2026 water quality report carries Butler's notice that it violated New Jersey's PFOA drinking water standard. Nothing about that changes a service line, but it is the reason a Bloomingdale bill insert talks about another town's water. - Clifton: Essentially all of Clifton's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Passaic Valley WC. About 98% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/clifton) - Clifton is one of PVWC's owner cities. Water is the Passaic Valley Water Commission at retail, meaning PVWC runs the distribution pipes in the street and not just the supply behind them, and one of the three cities that own the Commission, alongside Paterson and Passaic, so the water utility here is partly the city's own. Sewer is PVSC, with about 98% of the city inside a mapped sewer service area. - PVWC closed two NJ Water Bank loans totaling $6 million to replace roughly 70,000 customer meters and 105 wholesale meters across its system. Meter replacement at that scale is the kind of change that surfaces leaks and billing disputes nobody knew they had, so a sudden jump on a bill after a new meter goes in is worth checking against the service line before anybody assumes the old meter was right. - Haledon: About 80.9% of Haledon's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Manchester Utilities Authority, and the rest is on private wells. About 92.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/haledon) - Haledon's water comes from the Manchester Utilities Authority, which serves Haledon itself and portions of North Haledon and buys all the water it sells from the Passaic Valley Water Commission. Sewer is PVSC, and about 93% of the borough is mapped inside a sewer service area. - The Manchester Utilities Authority says it is working to identify and replace lead and galvanized service lines by 2031, and asks customers for help doing it. If an MUA letter asks what your service line is made of, answering it is how a line gets onto that list. - Hawthorne: Essentially all of Hawthorne's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Hawthorne WD. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hawthorne) - Hawthorne pumps its own water. The borough water department draws groundwater from 21 wells spread through town, and the whole borough is mapped inside its delivery area. Sewer goes to PVSC, and essentially all of Hawthorne is inside a mapped sewer service area. - All the water from the North Station, South Station, Goffle Hill and Utter Avenue plants now has PFAS treatment installed, according to the borough's 2026 water quality report. That is plant work, not street work, so the service line from the curb in is still whatever was put in when the house was built. - Little Falls: About 98.2% of Little Falls's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being NJ American Water - Little Falls. About 93.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/little-falls) - Most of Little Falls is served by New Jersey American Water, with a piece on the Township of Wayne system, and sewer goes to PVSC. Which of the two water utilities an address is on decides who you call and whose rules apply to the line. - In April 2025 NJ American Water announced a $1.3 million job replacing about 2,500 feet of main on Wilmore Road between 1st Avenue and Prospect Street, and said it would replace any customer-owned service line identified as lead or galvanized. On an American Water street, the customer side of a lead or galvanized line is part of that program rather than a private repair. - North Haledon: About 35.9% of North Haledon's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Manchester Utilities Authority, and the rest is on private wells. About 83.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/north-haledon) - North Haledon is split: only portions of the borough are on the Manchester Utilities Authority, the Haledon-based utility that buys its water from the Passaic Valley Water Commission, and NJDEP maps only about 36% of the borough's land inside a water delivery area. Sewer is far more complete, about 83% mapped, draining to PVSC. - The Manchester Utilities Authority says it is working to identify and replace lead and galvanized service lines by 2031, and asks customers for help doing it. If an MUA letter asks what your service line is made of, answering it is how a line gets onto that list. - Passaic: Essentially all of Passaic's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Passaic Valley WC. About 96% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/passaic) - Passaic is one of PVWC's owner cities. Water is the Passaic Valley Water Commission at retail, meaning PVWC runs the distribution pipes in the street and not just the supply behind them, and one of the three cities that own the Commission, alongside Paterson and Clifton, so the water utility here is partly the city's own. Sewer is PVSC, with about 96% of the city inside a mapped sewer service area. - PVWC closed two NJ Water Bank loans totaling $6 million to replace roughly 70,000 customer meters and 105 wholesale meters across its system. Meter replacement at that scale is the kind of change that surfaces leaks and billing disputes nobody knew they had, so a sudden jump on a bill after a new meter goes in is worth checking against the service line before anybody assumes the old meter was right. - Paterson: Essentially all of Paterson's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Passaic Valley WC. About 95.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/paterson) - Paterson is the largest of PVWC's owner cities. Water is the Passaic Valley Water Commission at retail, meaning PVWC runs the distribution pipes in the street and not just the supply behind them, and one of the three cities that own the Commission, alongside Clifton and Passaic, so the water utility here is partly the city's own. Sewer is PVSC, with about 95.4% of the city inside a mapped sewer service area. - PVWC closed two NJ Water Bank loans totaling $6 million to replace roughly 70,000 customer meters and 105 wholesale meters across its system. Meter replacement at that scale is the kind of change that surfaces leaks and billing disputes nobody knew they had, so a sudden jump on a bill after a new meter goes in is worth checking against the service line before anybody assumes the old meter was right. - Pompton Lakes: Essentially all of Pompton Lakes's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Pompton Lakes MUA. About 63.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Pompton Lakes Borough MUA WTP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/pompton-lakes) - Pompton Lakes runs its own municipal utilities authority for both water and sewer. The water side covers nearly the whole borough, but NJDEP maps only about 64% of it inside the sewer service area, so a Pompton Lakes address is not automatically on public sewer. - The MUA closed two NJ Water Bank loans totaling $16,005,200 in June 2024: one for planning and design of PFAS treatment at Well 3, the other for a new sewer pump station. The PFAS money is design money, so treatment at that well is a project in progress, not a finished one. - Prospect Park: Essentially all of Prospect Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 3 systems, the largest being Passaic Valley WC. About 98% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/prospect-park) - Prospect Park is a PVWC retail borough: the Passaic Valley Water Commission runs the distribution pipes in its streets rather than only supplying water to a borough system, with a sliver of the borough on Manchester Utilities Authority. Sewer is PVSC, with about 98% of the borough inside a mapped sewer service area. - PVWC closed two NJ Water Bank loans totaling $6 million to replace roughly 70,000 customer meters and 105 wholesale meters across its system. A new meter that reads differently from the old one is worth checking against the service line before anybody assumes the old meter was right. - Ringwood: About 27% of Ringwood's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Ringwood WD, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 1.3% of Ringwood is inside a sewer service area (High Point Homes STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/ringwood) - Ringwood runs its own small water system through the DPW: four wells serving about 3,214 customers. That covers only about 27% of the borough's land, and public sewer barely exists here at roughly 1%, so outside the served neighborhoods a Ringwood job is usually a well line and a septic system, not a water main and a lateral. - Totowa: Essentially all of Totowa's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 3 systems, the largest being Totowa WD. About 97.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/totowa) - Totowa runs its own water department but produces none of the water. The borough buys all of its drinking water from the Passaic Valley Water Commission and distributes it through its own pipes, with small pieces of town mapped to NJ American Water and PVWC directly. Sewer is PVSC, and nearly all of Totowa is inside a mapped sewer service area. - Wanaque: About 35% of Wanaque's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Wanaque WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 19.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Wanaque Valley Regional SA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/wanaque) - Wanaque's water mostly comes out of the ground: three borough wells draw from a glacial aquifer, with water bought from the North Jersey District Water Supply Commission when demand runs high. Only about 35% of the borough is mapped inside a water delivery area and about 19% inside the Wanaque Valley Regional sewer area. - The borough charges to shut a water service off: $65 during work hours and $175 after hours, per the DPW's water and sewer page. Worth knowing before a repair gets scheduled for a Saturday. - Wayne: Essentially all of Wayne's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Township of Wayne. About 94.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Mountain View STP. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/wayne) - Wayne runs its own water and sewer, and says in plain terms where the line changes hands: the service line from the curb valve to the house is owned and maintained by the property owner. Sewage goes to the township's own 13.5 million gallon per day Mountain View plant on Dey Road, not to PVSC. - West Milford: Only about 2.9% of West Milford sits inside a public water delivery area, in pockets served by Veolia Water NJ Olde Milford Estates, so most properties here are on private wells. Only about 2.5% of West Milford is inside a sewer service area (Olde Milford Estates STP), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/west-milford) - Outside a few neighborhoods, West Milford is wells and septic. NJDEP maps under 3% of the township's land inside any water delivery area, and what public water there is comes as a handful of small separate systems rather than one township utility. - One of those systems has an unusual chain: in the High Crest community the Passaic Valley Water Commission is the utility, but it buys the treated water from the Borough of Butler, which draws it from the Kakeout Reservoir, and pipes it into High Crest. So a High Crest house is billed by a Passaic County commission for water made in Morris County. - Woodland Park: About 83.6% of Woodland Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 4 systems, the largest being Woodland Park WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 73.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/woodland-park) - The Borough of Woodland Park operates its own water utility serving most of the town, but not all of it: NJ American Water and the Passaic Valley Water Commission serve parts of Woodland Park as well, and PVWC's Great Notch and New Street reservoirs sit in town without being part of the borough system. Sewer is PVSC. ### Bergen County (70 municipalities) Public water and a mapped sewer service area both reach somewhere in every one of Bergen County's municipalities, though coverage inside a town is rarely complete. That comes from NJDEP's mapped service areas, checked town by town. - Allendale: Essentially all of Allendale's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Veolia Water NJ Allendale WS. About 88.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/allendale) - Allendale no longer owns its water system. The borough sold it to SUEZ Water New Jersey, now Veolia, for $18,000,000 after voters approved the sale on November 2, 2021; at the time it served 2,535 customers from five wells. Sewage goes to the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority. - Alpine: About 30.1% of Alpine's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. Only about 12.5% of Alpine is inside a sewer service area (Cub World at Camp Alpine), so most properties here are on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/alpine) - Alpine is mostly wells and septic: NJDEP maps about 30% of the borough's land inside Veolia's water delivery area and only about 13% inside a sewer service area. The borough charges $250 per system for a septic installation permit, which includes five inspections. - Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Alpine among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Bergenfield: Essentially all of Bergenfield's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bergenfield) - Bergenfield puts the whole house sewer on the owner: owners or occupants are responsible for maintenance and repair of all sewer lines and connections between the premises and the main. Leader drains, foundation drains and sump pumps are not allowed to flow into the sanitary sewer. - Bogota: Essentially all of Bogota's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 94.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/bogota) - Bogota sets the fee for a new lateral from the sewer to the curb by pipe size: $500 for a four-inch connection up to $800 for eight-inch, plus a connection fee of $2,000 per domestic consumer unit. No sump pump may be connected to the borough's sanitary sewer. - Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Bogota among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Carlstadt: About 55% of Carlstadt's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 49.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/carlstadt) - Carlstadt has its own sewerage authority, chartered in 1967, the same year the borough joined the Bergen County UA system. Its Barell Avenue pump station was the first facility built under that charter, and the Jony Drive station is older than the authority itself. - Carlstadt flow also passes through the Joint Meeting Pump Station in Rutherford, which the Bergen County Utilities Authority is fortifying with a $1,610,000 loan. - Cliffside Park: Essentially all of Cliffside Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/cliffside-park) - Cliffside Park's water is Veolia and its sewer is Bergen County UA, which the borough joined in 1951. - Veolia has identified certain Cliffside Park properties that may have lead service lines and says it will replace them at no cost to homeowners. If your address is on that list, the replacement is Veolia's, not a private job. - Closter: Essentially all of Closter's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 81% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/closter) - Closter spelled out lateral ownership in an ordinance adopted March 26, 2025: the owner's lateral runs from the property up to and including the connection to the borough's sewer collection system, and repairs are at the property owner's sole expense. - Cresskill: Essentially all of Cresskill's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/cresskill) - In Cresskill the owner is responsible for maintenance and repair of all house sewer connections. The borough also ties roofing to drainage: a reroof of 1,500 square feet or more requires every roof leader to be connected to a storm drain or dry well. - Demarest: Essentially all of Demarest's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 88.9% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/demarest) - Connecting a house to Demarest's sewer main includes paying the borough $300 for a sewer connection saddle that the borough supplies. - Dumont: Essentially all of Dumont's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/dumont) - Dumont puts maintenance, repair and replacement of all laterals, spurs and house sewer connections between the dwelling and the main on the owner. A sewer connection permit is $100, which includes the inspection. - East Rutherford: About 80.2% of East Rutherford's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 60.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/east-rutherford) - East Rutherford's sewage moves through the Joint Meeting Pump Station in neighboring Rutherford, shared with Rutherford and Carlstadt, and the borough joined the Bergen County UA system in 1970. Sewer camera work, site work and hook-up questions go through the borough, at 201-933-3444 ext. 250. - Edgewater: About 40.5% of Edgewater's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 35% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/edgewater) - Edgewater joined the Bergen County UA system in 2007, and the borough is home to the Edgewater Water Pollution Control Facility. NJDEP maps only about 35% of the borough's land inside a sewer service area. - The Bergen County Utilities Authority closed a $75,000,000 NJ Water Bank loan to convert the Edgewater Water Pollution Control Facility into a pumping station, sending the flow to the Little Ferry plant instead of treating it in Edgewater. - Elmwood Park: Essentially all of Elmwood Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Elmwood Park WD. About 97.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/elmwood-park) - Elmwood Park runs its own water department but produces none of the water: the borough gets its entire supply from the Passaic Valley Water Commission. Sewer is PVSC, with nearly the whole borough mapped inside a sewer service area. - The borough has built a lead service line inventory and posts it on the town website, so whether a given address has a lead, galvanized or unknown line is something you can look up before a line is dug. - Emerson: Essentially all of Emerson's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 74.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/emerson) - Emerson's code makes owners or occupants are responsible for maintenance and repair of the building sewer. - Englewood: Essentially all of Englewood's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 95.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/englewood) - Englewood draws the ownership line almost at the main: the owner owns the building sewer, except the first piece of connecting pipe at the public sewer, which becomes city property. The sewer system itself is paid for through property taxes. - Reusing an existing lateral on a development application requires a CCTV inspection report. Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Englewood among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Englewood Cliffs: About 61.9% of Englewood Cliffs's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 47.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/englewood-cliffs) - Englewood Cliffs charges a sewer connection fee of $6,807 per equivalent dwelling unit, and the owner is responsible for maintenance and repair of the lateral. Only about 47% of the borough's land is mapped inside a sewer service area. - New construction or replacement construction pays a $2,000 sewer fee and requires a TV inspection of all sewer lines, so the lateral on a rebuilt house gets inspected. - Fair Lawn: Essentially all of Fair Lawn's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Fair Lawn WD. About 98.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/fair-lawn) - Fair Lawn runs its own water utility, and the borough's Water Distribution Division is responsible for about 105 miles of main, 1,200 hydrants, and all curb stops and water valves in the system. A stuck or broken curb stop here is a borough call, not a private repair. Sewer splits between PVSC and Bergen County UA. - Fairview: Essentially all of Fairview's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/fairview) - Fairview says plainly who owns the lateral: sewer laterals are owned from the dwelling to the main by the property owner, the whole run, not just to the curb. The borough DPW maintains about 13 miles of sanitary sewer, and Fairview joined the Bergen County UA system in 1951. - Fort Lee: About 87.9% of Fort Lee's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 77.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/fort-lee) - Fort Lee says homeowners are responsible for sewer lines from the home to the main line connection, and unlike many towns there is no separate sewer charge. South of Main Street the sanitary and storm sewers are directly or indirectly combined. - Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Fort Lee among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Franklin Lakes: About 57.2% of Franklin Lakes's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Veolia Water NJ Franklin Lakes, and the rest is on private wells. About 90.8% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/franklin-lakes) - Franklin Lakes is one of the member towns of the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority, along with Allendale, Ho-Ho-Kus, Mahwah, Ramsey, Saddle River, Upper Saddle River, Waldwick and others. Water is split between Veolia and the Oakland water department and NJDEP maps only about 57% of the borough's land inside a water delivery area. - The authority has awarded a $3.8 million contract to build a sanitary sewer collection system serving the Franklin Lakes Central Business District, which is how a business district that grew up on septic gets onto public sewer. - Garfield: Essentially all of Garfield's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Garfield WD. About 96.9% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/garfield) - Garfield makes most of its own water: the city is permitted to run fourteen production wells, thirteen of them active, and buys treated water in bulk from the Passaic Valley Water Commission to supplement them, according to the latest report the city has posted (for 2023). Sewer is PVSC. - Glen Rock: Essentially all of Glen Rock's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Ridgewood Water. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/glen-rock) - Two water systems and two sewer authorities meet in this borough. Ridgewood Water supplies most of Glen Rock with a piece on Fair Lawn's system, and on the sewer side roughly 99% of the borough is inside a mapped service area split between PVSC and the Ridgewood WPCF. Which one an address drains to is not something to assume on a lateral job. - Glen Rock is one of the four towns Ridgewood Water serves, which puts it inside two large programs running now. The utility closed a $17.9 million NJ Water Bank loan to replace lead service lines on both the public side, main to curb, and the private side from the curb into the building, against New Jersey's requirement that every lead and galvanized line be gone by July 2031. It also closed three loans totaling $18,547,052 for granular activated carbon treatment after PFOA and PFOS were found above limits in the system serving Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Midland Park and Wyckoff. - Hackensack: Essentially all of Hackensack's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 96.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hackensack) - Parts of Hackensack still have combined sewers, where storm water and sanitary sewage share one pipe. The city has been separating them street by street with NJ Water Bank loans: $5,204,010 for Main Street, $14,630,000 covering sections of James, Clay and Court Streets, and $10,965,153 for new separated storm and sanitary sewers near Railroad Avenue. - The city also closed a $1,370,000 loan to fix sanitary sewer deficiencies at six separate locations. On a Hackensack lateral, whether the street pipe is combined or separated changes what the connection is tying into. - Harrington Park: Essentially all of Harrington Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 79.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/harrington-park) - Hasbrouck Heights: Essentially all of Hasbrouck Heights's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hasbrouck-heights) - In Hasbrouck Heights the sewer connection is the owner's responsibility up to the main, including any preexisting lateral. PVSC lists the borough as a non-contracted municipality, one that connects to the PVSC system through an agreement, and most of the borough is also mapped to Bergen County UA. - Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Hasbrouck Heights among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Haworth: Essentially all of Haworth's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 75.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/haworth) - Haworth is home to Veolia's Haworth Water Treatment Plant, with a capacity of 200 million gallons per day. Owners are responsible for clearing stoppages and for maintenance, repair and replacement of building sewers and laterals. - Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Haworth among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Hillsdale: Essentially all of Hillsdale's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 95.9% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/hillsdale) - In Hillsdale, work on the sewer between the main and the property line is performed by the Department of Public Works or someone the borough authorizes. - Ho-Ho-Kus: Essentially all of Ho-Ho-Kus's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Ho-Ho-Kus WD. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/ho-ho-kus) - Ho-Ho-Kus runs its own water department alongside Ridgewood Water, and sewage goes to the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority and Ridgewood's plant. - The borough closed a $3,700,000 NJ Water Bank loan for a permanent PFAS treatment system to address PFAS and PFOS levels in its water. That is treatment at the source, so it does nothing to the service line itself. - Leonia: Essentially all of Leonia's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 93.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/leonia) - Little Ferry: About 88.4% of Little Ferry's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 78.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/little-ferry) - The Bergen County Utilities Authority's Little Ferry Water Pollution Control Facility is in the borough, and Little Ferry itself joined that system in 1960. - The plant was damaged in Superstorm Sandy, and the authority closed a $38,000,000 NJ Water Bank loan for repairs, separate from a project that rehabilitated 16 final settling tanks there. - Lodi: Essentially all of Lodi's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Passaic Valley WC - Lodi. About 98.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/lodi) - Lodi is a Bergen County borough served at retail by the Passaic Valley Water Commission, a Passaic County utility, so the water company on the bill answers to Paterson, Clifton and Passaic rather than to Bergen. A small edge of the borough maps to Veolia instead. Sewer is almost entirely mapped, split between PVSC and Bergen County UA. - PVWC closed two NJ Water Bank loans totaling $6 million to replace roughly 70,000 customer meters and 105 wholesale meters across its system. A new meter that reads differently from the old one is worth checking against the service line before anybody assumes the old meter was right. - Lyndhurst: About 53.8% of Lyndhurst's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Lyndhurst WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 68.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/lyndhurst) - Lyndhurst runs its own water department, but NJDEP maps only about 54% of the township inside its delivery area, much of the rest being the Meadowlands, and about 68% inside a sewer service area split between PVSC and Bergen County UA. Which sewer authority an address drains to is a real question here rather than a formality. - The township closed a $3.5 million NJ Water Bank loan to replace approximately 5,778 water meters, which is effectively every meter in the system. The stated aim is more accurate readings, less water lost and less wastewater flow, and the practical effect on a property is that a bill can change after the new meter goes in without anything having changed at the house. - Mahwah: About 42% of Mahwah's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 4 systems, the largest being Mahwah WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 39% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/mahwah) - Mahwah's water is a blend: for 2025, about 67.2% came from the township's own wells and the remaining 32.8% was supplied by Veolia. Only about 42% of the township's land is mapped inside a water delivery area and 39% inside the Northwest Bergen County UA's sewer area, so wells and septic are common in parts of the township. - The township's 2026 water quality report states that it did not submit the annual lead service line replacement progress report or plan on time. If you are asked about your service line material in Mahwah, that inventory work is what the question is for. - Maywood: Essentially all of Maywood's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/maywood) - Maywood makes the owner pay for all repairs and maintenance of the entire private sewer lateral, up to the point where it connects with the public sanitary sewer. - Before a certificate of occupancy, the sump pump has to be installed with permanent fittings and not discharge into the sanitary sewer. - Midland Park: Essentially all of Midland Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Ridgewood Water. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/midland-park) - Both utilities here are somebody else's. Water is Ridgewood Water, the village-owned system next door, and essentially all of the borough is inside a mapped sewer service area, mostly Northwest Bergen County UA with a piece on the Ridgewood WPCF. There is no borough water or sewer department to call, which changes who issues what on a connection. - Midland Park is inside Ridgewood Water's territory, so two programs running now apply here. The utility closed a $17.9 million NJ Water Bank loan for lead service line replacement covering both the public side from the main to the curb and the private side from the curb into the building, against the July 2031 deadline New Jersey set for removing every lead and galvanized line. It also closed three loans totaling $18,547,052 for granular activated carbon treatment after PFOA and PFOS were found above limits. - Montvale: Essentially all of Montvale's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Veolia Water NJ Montvale PD95. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/montvale) - Montvale's water is Veolia, though the borough says a small number of properties are still on well water. The borough itself maintains the sanitary sewers, and the sewage is treated by the Bergen County Utilities Authority. - Moonachie: About 98.2% of Moonachie's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 96.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/moonachie) - Moonachie is a Meadowlands borough that got sanitary sewers in 1963, replacing the old cesspools and septic systems, and joined the Bergen County UA system in 1961. A house here older than that went through a conversion, so there may be an abandoned cesspool on the lot. - New Milford: Essentially all of New Milford's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 97.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/new-milford) - New Milford puts the lateral on the owner: the house sewer lateral is made, paid for, installed and maintained by the owner. Cleanouts are required at each change in direction and every 50 feet of house connection. - On a demolition, the lateral has to be capped with a neoprene cap held on with a stainless steel band clamp. - North Arlington: Essentially all of North Arlington's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Passaic Valley WC - North Arlington. About 77% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/north-arlington) - North Arlington is a Bergen County borough served at retail by the Passaic Valley Water Commission, so PVWC runs the pipes in the street. Sewer is PVSC, but NJDEP maps only about 77% of the borough inside a sewer service area, a lower share than the neighbors, so it is worth confirming the connection before assuming a lot drains to the street. - PVWC closed two NJ Water Bank loans totaling $6 million to replace roughly 70,000 customer meters and 105 wholesale meters across its system. A new meter that reads differently from the old one is worth checking against the service line before anybody assumes the old meter was right. - Northvale: Essentially all of Northvale's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/northvale) - Norwood: Essentially all of Norwood's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 75% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/norwood) - Norwood splits the lateral: the house connection is maintained by the borough, and the property owner's connection is maintained by the owner. Sump pump discharge into the sanitary sewer is banned. - Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Norwood among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Oakland: About 70.4% of Oakland's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Oakland WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 23.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/oakland) - Oakland runs its own water department, covering about 70% of the borough's land, but public sewer reaches only about 23%. In October 2022 Veolia petitioned the BPU for consent to serve a portion of the borough as well. - The borough closed a $7,681,070 NJ Water Bank loan for the engineering phase of its wastewater treatment system renovation. Engineering money means design, not construction, so the sewer picture here is still being worked out. - Old Tappan: About 81.8% of Old Tappan's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 72% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/old-tappan) - Old Tappan charges an annual sewer use fee of $823.85 per unit for one-family dwellings, and single-family owners pay a $2,000 sewer connection fee to tie in. - Oradell: Essentially all of Oradell's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 89.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/oradell) - Oradell's sewer charge only starts above 250,000 gallons a year; below that there is no charge, and above it the rate is $2.41 per 1,000 gallons. - Palisades Park: Essentially all of Palisades Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 96.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/palisades-park) - Paramus: Essentially all of Paramus's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 98.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/paramus) - Paramus draws the lateral line at the curb: all sewer work between the main and the curb is performed by the Department of Public Works or a contractor the borough selects, and where no lateral exists the owner takes out a $100 sewer connection permit. The borough also operates and maintains its own sanitary sewer pump stations. - Paramus requires one cleanout plug terminated at ground level at each property. - Park Ridge: Essentially all of Park Ridge's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Park Ridge WD. About 97.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/park-ridge) - Park Ridge pumps its own water from 18 wells located in Park Ridge and Woodcliff Lake, and supplies Woodcliff Lake too. When PFOA in three wells exceeded the state limit, those three wells were immediately removed from service. Sewer goes to Bergen County UA. - The borough closed a $3 million NJ Water Bank loan for Well 21, including a treatment plant, to supplement its supply. - Ramsey: About 82.3% of Ramsey's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Ramsey WD, and the rest is on private wells. About 89.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/ramsey) - Ramsey runs its own water system and is blunt about ownership: all valves are the homeowner's responsibility. About 60% of its supply comes from 12 groundwater wells. Sewage goes to the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority. - Two things are changing. The borough adopted an ordinance on September 10, 2025 paying property owners $750 for replacing a lead service line, and it closed a $3.25 million NJ Water Bank loan for PFAS treatment at the Arrow Road Treatment Facility. - Ridgefield: About 52% of Ridgefield's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 71% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/ridgefield) - Ridgefield defines the house sewer lateral as the part of the system running from the sewer main to the curb line, and a house sewer lateral permit carries a minimum fee of $150. - Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Ridgefield among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Ridgefield Park: About 98.5% of Ridgefield Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 83.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/ridgefield-park) - Ridgefield Park is a combined sewer town: the village owns and operates six combined sewer overflow outfalls, four discharging to the Hackensack River and two to Overpeck Creek. In heavy rain, sewage and storm water leave the system there. The village joined the Bergen County UA system in 1951. - Ridgewood: Essentially all of Ridgewood's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Ridgewood Water. About 94.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Ridgewood WPCF. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/ridgewood) - Water here is Ridgewood Water, the village-owned utility that also supplies Glen Rock, Midland Park and Wyckoff, so the water side of a job in four Bergen towns answers to the same office. Sewer is split: about 95% of the village sits inside a mapped sewer service area, most of it the Ridgewood WPCF with a piece on Northwest Bergen County UA. - Ridgewood Water is in the middle of two of the largest utility programs in this part of Bergen County, and both of them mean open streets. It closed a $17.9 million NJ Water Bank loan to replace lead service lines, and the notable part for a property owner is scope: the program covers both the public side, from the main to the curb, and the private side from the curb into the building. New Jersey requires every lead and galvanized service line gone by July 2031, and the utility's own guidance is that the curb-to-building portion is privately owned by the homeowner or business. Separately the village closed three loans totaling $18,547,052 for granular activated carbon treatment after PFOA and PFOS turned up above limits. - River Edge: Essentially all of River Edge's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 98.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/river-edge) - River Edge puts maintenance and repair of all sewer lines and connections between the premises and the main on the owner or occupant. - River Vale: About 96.3% of River Vale's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 91.1% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/river-vale) - In River Vale, a new sewer lateral application carries a $500 minimum charge, and work between the main and the property line is controlled by the township. - Rochelle Park: Essentially all of Rochelle Park's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 87.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/rochelle-park) - In Rochelle Park the building sewer lateral between the main line and the property line is the owner's responsibility, but only someone the township authorizes may uncover, connect to or repair a public sewer lateral. - Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Rochelle Park among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Rockleigh: Essentially all of Rockleigh's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 29.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Orangetown STP, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/rockleigh) - Rockleigh's sewage crosses the state line: NJDEP maps the borough's sewer service area to the Orangetown plant in New York, and the Rockleigh Sewerage Authority paid the Town of Orangetown $233,387.76 in 2025. Only about 30% of the borough's land is inside that sewer area. - Rutherford: About 83.4% of Rutherford's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 94.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/rutherford) - Rutherford's sewage moves through the Joint Meeting Pump Station, which sits in Rutherford and serves Rutherford, East Rutherford and Carlstadt. The borough joined the Bergen County UA system in 1990. - The Bergen County Utilities Authority borrowed $1,610,000 to fortify that pump station against flooding, which matters to every basement lateral upstream of it. - Saddle Brook: Essentially all of Saddle Brook's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Saddle Brook WD. About 98.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/saddle-brook) - Saddle Brook produces no water of its own. The township obtains its drinking water entirely from other water systems, including Veolia's Hackensack system, and delivers it through township pipes. Sewer is PVSC. - The township used NJ Water Bank financing to replace about 3,477 feet of water main and 3,120 feet of service connections, so on some Saddle Brook streets the line to the curb is newer than the house. - Saddle River: About 98.2% of Saddle River's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Saddle River WU. About 97.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/saddle-river) - Saddle River runs its own water system but buys all of its water supply from Veolia. In 2023 the borough posted a proposed water system procurement: Veolia offered $3,700,000, and the borough noted a sale could only happen with voter approval by referendum. No outcome is posted. Sewage goes to the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority. - South Hackensack: About 89.9% of South Hackensack's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 89.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/south-hackensack) - PVSC lists South Hackensack as a lessee municipality, one with a lease agreement with PVSC, and the township is also mapped to Bergen County UA. Its code makes the owner of a connection responsible for controlling odors from the building sewer, and a property with a private well that ends up discharging to the sanitary sewer must have a sewer meter. - Teaneck: Essentially all of Teaneck's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 95.5% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/teaneck) - Teaneck's engineering permit fees for sewer work are $250 to replace an existing sanitary sewer connection and $500 per unit for a new residential connection. - Veolia's December 2025 announcement of its rate review request names Teaneck among the towns where it has replaced water mains, so the main in the street may be newer than the service line coming off it. - Tenafly: About 88.2% of Tenafly's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 70.2% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA, and the rest is on septic. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/tenafly) - Tenafly makes the curb connection and the house lateral the property owner's responsibility. Sump pump discharge to the sanitary sewer is prohibited. - Teterboro: Essentially all of Teterboro's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/teterboro) - Upper Saddle River: About 46.7% of Upper Saddle River's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Veolia Water NJ Hackensack, and the rest is on private wells. About 97.9% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/upper-saddle-river) - Nearly all of Upper Saddle River is mapped to the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority's sewer area, and some properties use Ramsey's sewer system: under the borough code, a property newly connecting to or using the Ramsey sewer pays Ramsey a $700 capacity charge. - Waldwick: Essentially all of Waldwick's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Waldwick WD. About 96.6% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/waldwick) - Waldwick runs its own water department, and sewage goes to the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority and Ridgewood's plant. The borough's engineer is building a hydraulic model of the water system in response to water clarity complaints. - The borough closed a $5,901,105 NJ Water Bank loan to install granular activated carbon PFAS treatment at six wells. - Wallington: Essentially all of Wallington's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Wallington WD. About 95% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by PVSC. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/wallington) - Wallington has its own water department supplied from the Passaic Valley system, and sewer is PVSC. The borough does not post its lead service line inventory; it can be requested by email from the borough. - The Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission closed a $23,477,201 NJ Water Bank loan to rehabilitate the Wallington Pump Station. - Washington Township: Essentially all of Washington Township's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 98.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/washington-township-bergen) - Washington Township's sewers are local pipes connected into the Bergen County district system, maintained by the Bergen County sewer authority. - Westwood: Essentially all of Westwood's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 97.4% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/westwood) - Westwood requires a performance guaranty of 125% of the sewer engineer's estimate for sewer lateral work done by an outside contractor. A certificate of occupancy is not finally issued until the sewer lateral is installed. - Wood-Ridge: Essentially all of Wood-Ridge's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Veolia Water NJ Hackensack. About 98.7% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/wood-ridge) - Wood-Ridge charges a sewer connection fee of $1,500 for a single-family structure. PVSC lists the borough as a lessee municipality, one with a lease agreement with PVSC. - Woodcliff Lake: Essentially all of Woodcliff Lake's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, shared between 2 systems, the largest being Park Ridge WD. About 89.3% of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/woodcliff-lake) - Most of Woodcliff Lake drinks from the Park Ridge water system, whose wells sit in both towns, with a piece of the borough on Veolia. Sewer goes to Bergen County UA. - Because the water is Park Ridge's, Park Ridge's rules reach here: mandatory water conservation took effect July 1, 2026, citing drought, seasonal demand and operational limits on the municipal system, and was later modified to ease lawn watering limits. - Wyckoff: Essentially all of Wyckoff's land area sits inside a public water delivery area, served by Ridgewood Water. Essentially all of the town is inside a sewer service area, the largest run by Northwest Bergen County UA. (https://jwsrllc.com/service-areas/wyckoff) - Wyckoff is served entirely by other people's systems: Ridgewood Water on the water side, and on the sewer side the whole township sits inside a mapped service area shared between Northwest Bergen County UA and PVSC. For a connection or a lateral repair that means the authority, not a township utility, is the party that matters. - Wyckoff is one of the four municipalities Ridgewood Water supplies, and two large programs are running across that territory. The utility closed a $17.9 million NJ Water Bank loan to replace lead service lines, covering the public side from the main to the curb and the private side from the curb into the building, against New Jersey's July 2031 deadline for removing every lead and galvanized line. Three further loans totaling $18,547,052 pay for granular activated carbon treatment after PFOA and PFOS were found above limits. ## Articles - How deep can you dig without calling 811 in New Jersey? There is no safe depth (2026-10-05): There is no depth you can dig to in New Jersey without calling 811. The only exclusions are routine maintenance with hand tools and a hand tool no deeper than six inches to fix a sprinkler or find a property marker. Fence posts, planting trees and trenching all need the call. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/how-deep-can-you-dig-without-calling-811-nj - Driveway Culvert Pipe Replacement in NJ: Signs, Pipe Choices and Who Pays (2026-10-03): When a driveway culvert fails in NJ: warning signs, who is responsible on town, county and state roads, HDPE vs metal vs concrete pipe, headwalls and cover. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/driveway-culvert-replacement-nj - Water main break on your street: can you shower, flush or drink the water? (2026-10-01): You can usually flush and shower if you still have pressure, and you should not drink the tap water unboiled once a boil water advisory is issued. Whether one is issued depends on whether the system lost pressure, and the advisory stays until certified lab results clear it. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/water-main-break-shower-flush-drink-nj - Four NJ towns where who owns the pipe just changed (2026-09-13): Manville sold its sewer to New Jersey American Water, part of Hillsborough went with it, Veolia's water franchise in Vernon grew, and Chester Township granted a gas franchise where there was none. Each with the ordinance, the BPU docket and what it changes at a house. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/who-owns-the-pipe-changed-nj-2026 - Sewage backing up into the basement in NJ: what to do (2026-09-12): Stop running water first. Then find out whether it is your lateral or the town's main, because in most New Jersey arrangements the line from the house to the main is yours, including the part under the road. The two minute test, snake versus dig, and who to call for which. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/sewage-backing-up-basement-nj - No water in the house, or water in the yard: NJ triage (2026-09-12): Both usually mean the service line, and the first job is not digging. Whether the whole street is out, the meter test that says which side of the curb stop the leak is on, why 42 inches of cover decides who freezes, and when it becomes a dig. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/no-water-in-house-or-water-in-yard-nj - You hit a line. The first ten minutes, in New Jersey (2026-09-12): Stop the machine and leave it. Gas and electric are a 911 call before they are a repair job, water and sewer belong to the system that owns them, and fiber is expensive rather than dangerous. What to photograph before the scene changes, and the two foot rule the claim usually turns on. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/hit-a-utility-line-while-digging-nj - Montague's water and sewer sold. What changed at your house (2026-09-05): New Jersey American Water closed on the Montague Sewer & Water Company on June 1, 2026. The BPU filing lists the whole system: 776 water customers, 268 sewer, five treatment plants and 11.75 miles of pipe. What the record says about rates, the one surcharge Montague was not exempted from, and where the utility's pipe stops being its problem. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/montague-water-sewer-sold-nj-american-water - Fiber, cable, or Starlink: what to hardwire and when satellite is the right call (2026-09-01): Fiber beats satellite on every measure, but most properties never get to choose. The real questions are what is at your road and what is over your roof, and the second one surprises people: the dish faces north, not south like every dish you have ever owned. What to hardwire, when satellite is the right call, and the one thing worth doing either way. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/fiber-vs-starlink-nj - How deep are water lines buried in New Jersey? 42 inches, and here is exactly why (2026-08-30): Below the recorded frost line with at least 42 inches of cover over the top of the pipe, and the 42 is specifically New Jersey's number, inserted into the plumbing code blank by N.J.A.C. 5:23-3.15. Why it is deeper than the 36 inch frost line, why some purveyors want four feet, and what we actually find broken when we dig. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/how-deep-are-water-lines-buried-nj - Yes, we replace water lines in January. Here is how, and what an emergency call really gets you (2026-08-30): Ground heaters thaw the dig, the restoration waits for April, and a hose from the neighbor's spigot keeps your taps running in between. Under an hour to most emergencies, an honest triage when we get there, and the three things we actually find broken: cracked poly, pinholed copper, rotted galvanized. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/water-line-replacement-winter-nj - Blairstown is selling its water system. Here is what that means at your house (2026-08-29): The township certified emergent conditions under the Water Infrastructure Protection Act in August 2025: wells from 1896 and 1917, a $1.5 million repair bill against a $204,000 budget. What WIPA actually is, the 45-day petition right residents keep, what happened to rates in the two towns that sold, and the service line that stays yours no matter who buys. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/blairstown-selling-water-system-wipa - Sewer pipe lining vs replacement: what an excavator will tell you that a lining company will not (2026-08-29): Sometimes lining is the right answer, and we do not sell it, which is why we can say so. What the camera has to show for lining to work, the belly and collapse cases where it cannot, and why lining is the no-restoration option rather than the cheap one. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/sewer-pipe-lining-vs-replacement-nj - My sewer line failed inspection. What that actually means in New Jersey (2026-08-28): Nothing failed, because nothing passed or failed. New Jersey has no statewide sewer inspection requirement at sale, so a bad sewer scope is a negotiation and not a violation. Which findings are real, which get oversold, and why a belly can never be lined. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/sewer-scope-failed-inspection-nj - Pipe bursting, pulling in place, or open trench: which one your water line needs (2026-08-28): Trenchless water line replacement is decided by the material of your existing pipe, not by your lawn. Copper and lead pull, rotted galvanized has to be burst, and New Jersey treats both as excavation, markout and all. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/pipe-bursting-vs-open-trench-water-line-nj - What fire hydrants are acceptable in NJ? There is no state approved list (2026-08-27): New Jersey's rule defers to your municipality or water purveyor first, with ANSI/AWWA C502 as the fallback. Plus the requirements that do not vary: three outlets, pumper facing the street, 400 feet to any dwelling, and a six inch minimum connection. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/what-fire-hydrants-are-acceptable-nj - Scoping a New Jersey site from Street View and AI? What they cannot tell you (2026-08-25): Remote tools are genuinely good at narrowing a list and measuring a lot. They cannot see under anything, the imagery is older than you think, and AI answers confidently either way. Two jobs where the ground disagreed with the picture. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/street-view-ai-site-assessment-guessing - What does your HOA actually own underground in New Jersey? (2026-08-21): The Municipal Services Act makes your town plow your private roads, light them and take your trash. It says nothing about what is underneath. The mains, storm system, hydrants and valves are almost always the association's. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/what-does-an-hoa-own-underground-nj - Your water bill doubled and nobody can find a leak. Here is what that means in NJ (2026-08-20): A jumped bill is usually something cheap running past your meter, but it can be the buried line, and which one turns on where your meter sits. The ten minute test that settles it. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/water-bill-doubled-no-leak-found-nj - Low water pressure through the whole house? In an older NJ home it is often galvanized (2026-08-18): Pressure that faded over years usually means a supply pipe narrowing from the inside. And under NJ law a galvanized service line is legally a lead service line, which can change who pays to replace it. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/low-water-pressure-whole-house-galvanized-nj - Every drain in the house is slow, not just one. What that means in NJ (2026-08-14): One slow drain is a clog. Every drain at once is the main line to the street, and that is a different problem with a different bill. The two minute test that separates them, and how to tell a clog from a failing pipe. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/all-drains-slow-at-once-nj - A wet spot in the yard that never dries: water line, septic or groundwater? (2026-08-13): It is almost always one of three things in New Jersey, and they have completely different answers. How to tell a leaking water service from a failing septic field from plain groundwater, before anybody digs. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/wet-spot-in-yard-that-wont-dry-nj - French drain, catch basin, curtain drain or dry well: which do you need? (2026-08-11): They do not compete, they collect different water. A catch basin takes surface water you can see; a French drain takes it out of saturated soil. And the question that actually sets the price is not which pipe, it is where the water is allowed to go. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/french-drain-vs-catch-basin-vs-dry-well-nj - A fiber build in Hamburg, NJ: 18,000 feet of conduit and 220 homes (2026-08-06): 18,000 feet of conduit, 55,000 feet of fiber pulled through it, and 220-plus drops buried to the side of the house. Why the fiber footage is three times the conduit, what handholes are for, and why on a build this size the restoration is the job. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/hamburg-nj-fiber-build-220-homes - An HOA sewer repair in Bernardsville: ten feet of roots, four and a half feet down (2026-08-04): A plumber called it in. Ten feet of line wrecked by root intrusion at four and a half feet deep. Why root damage is usually local, why we stayed on site while he worked, and why the hay over the seed is not decoration. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/bernardsville-hoa-sewer-root-intrusion - A 500 foot water line in Andover, NJ: five months of leaking, and what we found (2026-07-31): A drought gave it away. Four feet down we found poly where the house has copper, cracked on the underside because it was never bedded in sand. The spot repair was $4,750 and the full 500 foot replacement $17,400. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/andover-nj-500-foot-water-line-leak - Why NJ towns are asking what your water line is made of, and what to do (2026-07-29): Got a tag on the door or a letter with your water bill? Here is how to identify your own pipe in five minutes, why galvanized legally counts as lead, and who actually pays for the homeowner's half in New Jersey. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/nj-water-line-survey-lead-galvanized - Why we couldn't bore this driveway and had to open trench it (2026-07-24): Five bore attempts in Bridgewater, a shale ledge, and a last try started at five and a half feet that still exited at sixteen inches. Why the driveway got excavated, and why the homeowner already knew the price before we told him. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/why-we-could-not-bore-this-driveway - What happens if you hit an unmarked utility in NJ? (2026-07-22): Gas means 911 immediately, then engines off, because static counts. NJ requires damage reported immediately whether or not it caused an emergency. Plus the exemption nobody knows: old plastic water pipe does not have to be marked at all. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/hit-an-unmarked-utility-nj-what-to-do - Copper vs polyethylene water service line in NJ: which is better? (2026-07-17): Copper lasts 30 to 40 years, poly 10 to 20, and copper material costs 10 to 12 times as much. But the deciding factor is usually neither: plastic pipe lets petroleum contaminants permeate through the pipe wall, and metal pipe does not. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/copper-vs-poly-water-service-line-nj - Do you need a permit for a French drain in NJ? (2026-07-15): Usually not from the state, because a typical drain disturbs about 200 square feet against a 5,000 square foot threshold. But four things turn it into permitted work, and whether the pipe touches the house decides more than anything else. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/french-drain-permit-nj - Can your project even connect? NJ sewer bans and plant capacity (2026-07-10): Before the permit question comes a harder one: does the treatment plant downstream of your site have room? What a sewer ban is, the 95 percent early warning NJDEP publishes, and how approved-but-unbuilt projects can take the capacity first. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/nj-sewer-connection-ban - Do I need a permit to clear land in New Jersey? (2026-07-07): Disturb more than 5,000 square feet and the state calls it a project. Here is the threshold, the two exclusions written into the law that people miss, and what the Highlands and wetlands rules add on top. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/land-clearing-permit-nj - Do you need a Treatment Works Approval for a sewer extension in NJ? (2026-07-02): If your project adds sanitary sewer pipe, the permit that sets your schedule comes from Trenton, not the town. What a TWA covers, what the application actually asks for, and the wet-ink requirement that catches everyone. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/treatment-works-approval-nj - Running Fiber Optic Through a Christmas Tree Farm in Montgomery, NJ (2026-06-20): Threading fiber through a Montgomery NJ Christmas tree farm to reach three rural homes, and why rural broadband matters for property values and local jobs. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/fiber-optic-christmas-tree-farm-montgomery-nj - How to Pick the Right Contractor (From a Contractor) (2026-04-18): We compete for the same jobs as everyone else, so take this for what it is: the checklist we would use to hire in our own trade. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/why-its-important-to-find-and-hire-the-right-landscaper - 40 Competitors, One Mission: Sussex County Emergency Snow Removal (2026-04-13): James founded a network of roughly 40 local plow contractors who clear driveways and roads for police, fire, and EMS during serious storms, clearing the way for emergency crews when minutes matter. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/sussex-county-emergency-snow-removal - Sinkholes in Sussex County: Why Our Limestone Valleys Open Up, and What to Do (2026-04-01): Parts of Sussex and Warren County sit on karst limestone that slowly dissolves underground. Here is why sinkholes and depressions show up here, and how we stabilize them. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/sinkholes-karst-sussex-county-nj - Why we hand-dig near utility marks: the 24-inch rule (2026-03-05): Before a machine touches the ground, we walk the site and measure at least 24 inches off every utility flag. Here is how we keep gas, water, electric, and fiber lines safe on every dig in northern NJ. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/utility-marks-24-inch-rule-nj - Wet basement or a yard that never dries? The fix is usually outside (2026-03-02): French drain, curtain drain, footing drain, dry well. What each one actually solves, and why grading and downspouts come first. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/wet-basement-soggy-yard-drainage-nj - Orangeburg Sewer Pipe: The Ticking Clock Under NJ Homes Built Before 1975 (2026-02-11): If your home was built between 1945 and 1972, your sewer lateral may be made of wood pulp and tar. Here is how to tell, what failure looks like, and what replacement involves. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/orangeburg-sewer-pipe-nj-homes - Emergency water line replacement at Shakey Jakes Cafe, Stanhope NJ (2026-02-06): A leaking water service threatened to close Shakey Jakes Cafe in Stanhope mid-winter. We replaced 150 feet of service, bored 33 feet of it under the parking lot rather than opening the asphalt, and upsized to a 1-inch line so a dinner rush does not run them out of pressure. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/emergency-water-line-replacement-restaurant - How to Keep Fresh Excavation From Washing Away (2026-01-27): Bare dirt and a hard rain are a bad combination. Here is how we protect finished excavation work, and what you can do to keep it in place until the grass takes over. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/how-to-prevent-erosion-after-excavation-work-is-complete - Can you replace my line without tearing up the driveway? Often, yes (2026-01-23): When to bore and when to open cut, why New Jersey does not let anyone blind bore past a marked utility, and why an honest quote for a bore already has the open cut priced on it as a separate line. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/trenchless-directional-boring-under-driveway-nj - What a new driveway really costs in New Jersey (2025-12-26): Gravel runs $2 to $6 a square foot, new asphalt $7 to $15 installed, and the base under it decides whether any of it lasts. Costs by type, how long each lives, and why the cheap quote repaves in five years. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/driveway-cost-nj - That Puddle in Your Yard Is Telling You Something (2025-12-02): Standing water is never just a puddle. It is water making a decision about your foundation, your lawn, and your wallet. Here is how to read what it is saying. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/the-scoop-on-grading-drainage-why-is-it-so-important - What a retaining wall really costs in New Jersey (2025-10-21): Most residential walls run $30 to $75 per square face foot installed, and the price is driven by height and drainage far more than the block you pick. Why the cheap quote is usually the expensive one, and when a lean means rebuild. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/retaining-wall-cost-nj - The Guy With a Backhoe vs. the Licensed Contractor (2025-09-13): Every town has a guy with a backhoe who is cheaper. Sometimes that works out fine. Here is an honest take on when it does not, from people who fix those jobs. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/should-you-hire-a-weekend-warrior-or-a-licensed-professional - How a Septic System Actually Gets Installed (2025-09-07): From soil testing to the final grade, the honest walkthrough of a septic installation in New Jersey. The approvals are the long pole, not the digging, and the permit comes from your local health department rather than the state. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/the-process-of-installing-a-septic-system - Call before you dig: how NJ mark-outs actually work (2025-09-02): Every dig in New Jersey starts with a free call to 811 and colored paint on the ground. Here is what those marks mean, how long the process takes, and why we will never put a bucket in the dirt without one. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/call-before-you-dig-nj-markout-811 - What Good Underground Utility Work Actually Looks Like (2025-08-30): Most of our work gets buried, and nobody ever sees it again. Here is what separates utility work that lasts fifty years from work that fails in five. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/the-art-of-underground-utilities - The Dirt Work Behind Every Yard That Lasts (2025-05-13): Great yards are not built with plants first. They are built with grading, drainage, and base work that nobody sees. Here is what should happen before anything green goes in. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/the-art-of-landscaping - Emergency NJDOT Telecom Repair on Route 206 in Newton (2025-04-23): An NJDOT emergency on State Route 206 in Newton: inspected at 8 a.m., on the job by 8 p.m., riser replaced and repaved. Why a state right of way is a different job, and why emergency work is a different procedure rather than an exemption from one. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/emergency-njdot-telecom-repair-route-206-newton - What a sewer line replacement really costs in New Jersey (2025-02-20): Spot repairs usually run $3,000 to $8,000 in our area; full replacements typically run $10,000 to $20,000, depending on depth and length of run. What moves the number, who owns the pipe under the street, and why an honest quote prices plan B up front. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/sewer-line-replacement-cost-nj - What tower owners should ask before hiring a civil crew (2025-02-19): Pads, access roads, conduit, and drainage decide whether a tower site is easy to service for thirty years. Here is what to ask any dirt crew before they touch your compound, including us. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/cell-tower-civil-site-work-what-to-ask - Call 811 Before You Dig. Every Job. Every Time. (2025-02-17): Calling 811 is free and it is the law, but the real reason matters more than the fine. The gas, power, and internet lines under your yard keep real people warm, safe, and alive. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/call-811-before-you-dig - Your septic alarm is going off. Here is what it means and what to do (2025-01-08): That red light and the buzzing on the panel outside is not the end of the world, but it is telling you something. Here is what a septic alarm means, what to do in the next hour, and when to call. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/septic-alarm-going-off-what-to-do-nj - How deep should a sewer line be in New Jersey? (2025-01-02): New Jersey code sets a 24-inch minimum cover, but the frost line and the depth of the town main usually put real sewer lines deeper. Here is what the code says, how deep laterals actually sit in northern NJ, and why slope matters as much as depth https://jwsrllc.com/blog/how-deep-should-a-sewer-line-be-nj - Installing Utility Cable With a Vibratory Plow (Vermeer SPX25) (2024-10-09): Placing alarm-signal cable at an SCMUA treatment plant with a Vermeer SPX25. How a vibratory plow works, and when to plow, trench or bore. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/utility-cable-vibratory-plow-vermeer-spx25 - Will running a new line ruin my yard? How we put it back (2024-10-01): The worry we hear before almost every job is whether the lawn will survive. Here is how we keep the digging small and leave your property looking like we were barely there. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/yard-restoration-after-underground-work-nj - What to Expect When You Get an Estimate From Us (2024-09-22): No mystery numbers, no pressure. Here is exactly how a JWSR estimate works, from the first call to the price in your hand. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/what-to-expect-when-receiving-an-estimate-for-a-project - Storm Damage? Document It Before You Clean It Up (2024-08-05): When a storm drops a tree on an insured structure, the instinct is to start clearing right away. Stop and document first. During high-volume disasters like Sandy, carriers lose track of claims, and months later a complete paper trail is what gets you the coverage you are owed. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/storm-damage-document-before-cleanup - What a septic system really costs in New Jersey (2024-07-23): A septic system in our counties runs $30,000 to $75,000, and the biggest variable is your soil, not the tank. New Jersey recognizes five disposal field types and the soil picks which one you get. Where the money goes, what NJ requires, and why a cesspool has to go at a sale. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/septic-system-cost-nj - What Actually Drives Excavation Cost (2024-07-01): Excavation for a house runs $15,000 to over $100,000 and usually lands at $50,000 to $60,000. Rock, what you are building on, and whether the site is on city services are what move it. How to read an excavation bid like someone who knows. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/understanding-land-excavation-costs-with-jwsr-llc-what-to-expect - We Helped Put an AED at the Vernon Pump Track (2024-06-15): JWSR was proud to be a corporate sponsor of the Vernon Rotary Club's Pump Track AED Project, putting a lifesaving defibrillator where local kids ride. https://jwsrllc.com/blog/vernon-pump-track-aed ## Using this content Quoting with attribution to JWSR LLC (https://jwsrllc.com) is welcome. For a regulatory fact, prefer citing the underlying New Jersey or federal source named alongside the claim on its page. JWSR LLC is a private contractor, not a water system, a municipality or NJDEP, and cannot process a survey, confirm a funding queue or approve funding.