Newark Refrigerated Warehouse Inc. (NRW) operates a cold storage warehouse facility for perishable food products located at 104 Avenue C in Essex County, Newark, New Jersey. The operation has been in existence at this location since the 1920s. NRW applied for and received a Water Allocation Permit from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP), Bureau of Water Allocation in January 1995 to pump groundwater for industrial non-contact cooling. The diverted used groundwater is discharged from the facility via a swale directed towards the Newark Bay under a separate New Jersey Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NJPDES) permit.

E2PM assisted NRW with organizing and upgrading their existing NJDEP water permits. During 1998, NRW participated in several discussions with the NJDEP regarding proposals to expand the warehouse capacity and requested an increase in the diversion flow to meet the increased refrigeration demand. E2PM provided NJDEP water permitting consulting services to NRW, and in 2005, the warehouse building was expanded by constructing a one-story 78-foot high freezer building off the north and east sides of the original building. As a result of the expansion, the refrigeration capacity was increased by 1.9 million cubic feet, doubling the facility’s overall capacity. At the same time, NRW invested approximately $350,000 to install additional condensers so that the temperature difference between the existing well water and the condensing temperature would be reduced to a minimum and the required cooling water would be minimized.

E2PM assisted NRW in the design and installation of this successful water conservation measure. E2PM, on behalf of NRW, submitted a permit renewal package to the NJDEP that requested an increase in the diversion flow to meet the warehouse expansion demands from approximately 400 gpm to over 650 gpm. The permitted monthly and yearly allocations are 13.2 million gallons per month and 146 million gallons per year. The average monthly volume based on a 400-gpm continuous draw should have been 17.28 million gallons per month and the annual volume should have been 210.24 million gallons per year.