Summary: Children in New Jersey face disproportionate exposure risks from both drinking water contaminants and recreational water contact, with lead, nitrates, and microbial pathogens presenting the highest documented hazards. This exploratory assessment identifies pathways, sensitive populations, and data gaps that inform risk management priorities.

Children’s Vulnerability to Water Contaminants in New Jersey

Children are not simply small adults when it comes to water exposure risk. Pound-for-pound, children drink two to three times more water relative to body weight than adults, have less mature detoxification pathways, and exhibit higher gastrointestinal absorption rates for contaminants such as lead and arsenic. These physiological differences translate directly into higher effective doses from the same water quality that a regulatory standard calibrated to adult risk may not fully protect.

Drinking water exposure pathways in New Jersey: New Jersey’s drinking water infrastructure presents several well-documented risk factors for children. Lead service lines—pipes connecting the municipal main to individual homes—were standard before 1986 and remain in service in older urban communities including Newark, Trenton, and Camden. Lead mobilizes from these lines especially when water chemistry or pressure changes occur, and young children absorb up to 50% of ingested lead compared to roughly 10% in adults. No safe blood lead level for children has been established, and cognitive effects are detectable at levels previously considered acceptable.

Nitrate contamination from agricultural and septic sources affects shallow wells across the state’s farming regions. Infants under six months are particularly vulnerable to methemoglobinemia (“blue baby syndrome”) from nitrate above 10 mg/L as N. Households on private wells bear sole responsibility for testing and treating their supply, creating inequitable protection relative to regulated municipal customers.

Recreational water risks: Children swim more frequently and for longer durations than adults and are more likely to ingest water. New Jersey’s coastal beaches, inland lakes, and municipal pools each present distinct microbial and chemical hazard profiles. Harmful algal blooms (HABs) from cyanobacteria produce hepatotoxins and neurotoxins that pose acute risks; children’s lower body weight amplifies effective toxin dose. Post-storm beach closures reflect elevated pathogen loads from combined sewer overflows that disproportionately affect swimming populations in lower-income urban coastal areas.

A multi-barrier approach combining source protection, point-of-use treatment (especially RO for well users), and informed recreational guidance best protects New Jersey’s pediatric population from water-related health risks.

Brandon M. Owen and Neha Sunger * 

Abstract

In this study, we conducted a worst-case risk assessment for children’s health from ingestion exposure to water sources in two densely populated counties of the Piedmont province of New Jersey—Hunterdon and Mercer counties. Carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risk estimates for 19 contaminants, representing 3 different chemical classes—organic, inorganic and contaminants of emerging concern (CEC), for which environmental monitoring data are available—were generated. The three exposure scenarios examined were: (1) ingestion exposure to untreated groundwater from contaminated private wells; (2) recreational exposure through incidental ingestion of water from the Delaware River; and (3) ingestion exposure through fish consumption sourced from the Delaware River. The total health hazard posed by each contaminant across all the three exposure scenarios was compared to prioritize contaminants based on health risk potential. As a result of this analysis, arsenic and trichloroethylene in private well water were identified as key drivers of health risk and, hence, are proposed as the contaminants of primary concern for the target population. Significantly high total excess cancer risk of 2.13 × 10⁻³ from arsenic exposure was estimated, highlighting the need for testing and treating water sources as well as setting a framework for more detailed work in the future.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/10/3/276

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Source: Water Feed