Drinking water for New Jersey’s capital city has been largely untested for more than a year, according to the utility company

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Drinking water in New Jersey’s capital and some surrounding communities has been largely untested for more than a year, the utility belatedly told about 200,000 affected customers, noting that it had fired a worker who had falsified the relevant reports.

Trenton Water Works said in a letter to customers last week that it became aware of the problem a year ago and that an investigation found the water sampler falsified reports aimed at detecting disinfection byproducts from October 2022 to October 2022. E. coli and other things to monitor last December. A large proportion of the water samples taken by the energy supplier during this period were classified as invalid, it said.

The worker, who was not named in the utility’s letter and was not charged, was placed on leave and then fired.

The utility said the water was now safe and customers did not need to take any action.

Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora called the falsification of reports “inexcusable.” He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the matter had been referred to state environmental officials, who referred it to the attorney general’s office.

“We are trying everything we can to prosecute the bad guy,” he said.

He added that the utility employs more than 100 people.

“One of them did something extremely bad. We are very upset and it is embarrassing. At the same time, additional water samples were taken and no alarm was triggered.”

When asked why it took a year to inform the public about the hoaxes, the mayor said the city followed Department of Environmental Protection regulations.

“The notice itself is required by the DEP,” he said. “But there was no evidence of an immediate threat.”

In response to the incident, the utility said it has increased oversight of sample collectors and implemented additional procedures to comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act. This also included installing GPS tracking devices on fleet vehicles for real-time monitoring, it said.

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