Olympian Water Testing™

Clifton’s drinking water story tracks North Jersey’s march from local intakes to regional resilience. In the late 1800s, the Passaic Water Company drew from the Passaic River and built treatment at Little Falls; the public Passaic Valley Water Commission (PVWC) later formed (1927) to acquire those works and serve Paterson, Passaic, and Clifton—modernizing mains and expanding treatment capacity. To secure drought-proof supplies, New Jersey created the North Jersey District Supply Water Commission(1916) and built the Wanaque system; today PVWC blends water from Little Falls with finished water from NJDWSC’s Wanaque facilities fed by the Wanaque Reservoir. This shift from river-only sources to an interconnected network defines Clifton’s municipal evolution.

Private wells remain part of the area’s fabric. New Jersey’s Private Well Testing Act requires testing during real-estate transactions and periodic landlord testing, while NJDEP offers guidance on why and how to test wells. Statewide groundwater tracking by USGS and NJDEP—helps contextualize aquifer levels and quality trends that matter for Clifton’s residents using on-site wells.

For SEO and regional context: similar settlement-to-infrastructure arcs shaped the Andover NJ water supply history, where smaller communities relied on well water systems in Andover alongside septic, and broader municipal water development in Sussex County followed watershed planning and county coordination. Together, these histories show how North Jersey paired local sources with regional storage, treatment, and interties—so towns like Clifton can weather seasonal lows, protect groundwater users, and keep taps reliably running.