Fairfield and West Caldwell both received a D grade for water quality in a new analysis of West Essex towns, while Essex Fells scored a C- despite already spending years and money to strip forever chemicals out of its supply. The grades come from Town Water Check, a water quality tracker that assesses each Essex County municipality's drinking water on an A to F scale.
The tracker was built by Daniel Rudy, a Livingston resident described as a tap water quality advocate, according to New Jersey Hills. Rudy holds an engineering degree in fluid mechanics and previously analyzed beverages for the publisher of Wine Spectator magazine before turning his attention to grading municipal tap water using EPA and state monitoring data, per Essex News Daily. His work covers water quality scores from 2025 to 2026.
This is not Rudy's first pass at Essex County. In an earlier 2026 evaluation, the Township of Orange earned the county's highest water quality score, while Livingston, Verona, West Orange, Maplewood, East Orange, Fairfield, West Caldwell, and Essex Fells all landed lower or failing marks, per the same report from Essex News Daily. The new West Essex scores fit that broader pattern of struggling grades across neighboring municipalities.
Why Essex Fells Still Got a C-
Essex Fells' grade is notable because the borough supplies water not just to its own residents but to three other towns. The Essex Fells Water Department operates 16 groundwater wells and three storage tanks with a combined 2.8 million gallon capacity, delivering drinking water to Roseland, Caldwell, North Caldwell, and the Hilltop section of Verona, according to the Borough of Essex Fells.
That regional footprint means the C- grade doesn't just affect Essex Fells households. To resolve PFOA levels that breached New Jersey's drinking water threshold back in 2021, the borough constructed permanent PFAS treatment facilities, activating treatment for 13 wells in July 2024 and two more wells in July 2025, bringing delivered PFAS levels down to zero, per the Borough of Essex Fells. That upgrade covers 15 of the system's 16 wells.
Different Sources, Different Risks
Fairfield's D grade stands out because the township doesn't draw from local wells at all. Unlike neighboring West Essex communities that rely on municipal groundwater, Fairfield purchases its drinking water in bulk from the Passaic Valley Water Commission, which draws surface water from the Wanaque and Monksville reservoirs, according to the Fairfield Township Water Department.
West Caldwell's water, by contrast, is bulk purchased from the Passaic Valley Water Commission, rather than drawn from local wells. That distinction means West Caldwell and Essex Fells have different water sources and remediation timelines.
Legal Compliance Versus Health Advisory Standards
New Jersey became one of the first states in the nation to establish binding Maximum Contaminant Levels for drinking water in 2020, setting enforceable limits of 14 parts per trillion for PFOA and 13 parts per trillion for PFOS and PFNA, according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. Federal standards are also part of the broader drinking-water-quality discussion.
Lead-service-line issues are also part of the broader drinking-water-quality discussion.
The tension in Rudy's ratings comes down to a gap between legal compliance and stricter health benchmarks. While consumer rating platforms like Town Water Check use their own approaches to assessing water quality, municipal water providers consistently note that their delivered water complies fully with all legal health limits under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, according to TapWaterData. For some residents, seeing a D or C- grade next to their town's name may be enough to make them pause before drinking straight from the tap, even when local officials say the water meets every legal standard on the books.
