Trenton Water Works shuts down filtration plant, issues “limit-water-use” advisory for all customers

Trenton Water Works, the water utility serving more than 217,000 people in Trenton and parts of Hamilton, Ewing, Lawrence, and Hopewell townships, has issued a limit-water-use advisory to all of its customers.

On Wednesday evening, Trenton Water Works officials issued the advisory calling on customers to use water only for essential purposes or emergencies such as putting out fires.

Officials said the water filtration plant for the Trenton Water Works had to be shut down because of “frazil” ice accumulations at the plant’s raw water intake point. The raw intake point is where a water plant draws untreated water from a natural source like a river, lake, or aquifer before it undergoes filtration and treatment to become safe drinking water. Frazil ice is a type of slushy ice that forms on rivers and lakes when cold air and a wind chill cause surface water to cool below freezing. 

“TWW’s water filtration plant is offline because of significant ice build-up in the Delaware River, TWW’s raw water source,” reads the advisory. “TWW cannot draw water from the Delaware River for treatment because of raw water intake ice build-up at the water filtration plant on Route 29 South in Trenton.”

While the Trenton water plant is offline, Trenton Water Works has activated an emergency interconnection with the private water supplier New Jersey American Water. “The water is safe to drink and is of high quality,” officials said in a statement.

Trenton Water Works is one of the largest publicly owned, urban water utilities in the United States. It supplies an average of 27 million gallons of Delaware River-sourced drinking water to Mercer County residents per day.

The utility has been plagued with problems in recent years. Trenton journalist Jeff Pillets reported last month on issues at the utility that include financial problems, billing delays, and worker shortages. He also reported in The Jersey Vindicator that water from the Trenton Water Works remains in violation of the NJ Safe Water Drinking Act.