Tens of thousands of people in North Jersey are still without clean drinking water following Ida.  

The New Street Reservoir in Woodland Park provides tap water to more than 250,000 residents in towns such as Passaic, Paterson and Clifton. It was contaminated during Ida and is still not clean.  

“This is ridiculous, a month and a half,” says Carole Torres, of Passaic.

Residents picked up bottled water again this morning at the Clifton Senior Center.  

“I’ve been buying water since the beginning, and I’ve been picking up wherever I can,” says Torres.

The Passaic Valley Water Commission says tests could be completed by next Friday.

The Passaic Valley Water Commission operates three reservoirs in North Jersey. Long-term plans to prevent this from happening again include covering them in some way, but that could take years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.