The increase is aimed at addressing one of the region's most persistent environmental problems: aging combined sewer systems that send raw sewage and stormwater into the Cooper and Delaware rivers during heavy rains. The city of Camden and Gloucester City together are responsible for about 1 billion gallons of combined sewer overflows annually, according to county officials.

The county's top priority is a $50 million initiative to rehabilitate cracked and deteriorated sanitary sewer lines, reduce sewage spills, and mitigate flooding in streets and basements. The plan also calls for separating Pennsauken's combined sewer into distinct sanitary and storm flows. Currently, Pennsauken's combined flow travels through Camden to the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority treatment plant, which serves about 500,000 residents across the county's 36 municipalities. Under the plan, stormwater from Pennsauken and Camden would discharge directly into the Delaware River while sewage would be routed separately to the treatment facility.

Beyond the tax revenue, the county will draw on long-term, low-interest state loans to finance the work. Officials also are investing in green stormwater infrastructure such as rain gardens that capture runoff, along with restoring recreational lakes and open space.

"It will also mean advancing some of the plans for capital improvements on our waterways, such as fishing piers and kayak launches, boat launches," Camden County Commissioner Jeffrey Nash said. "So, it improves the quality of life for residents. It improves our environment, and enhances our property values."

The referendum drew support from residents motivated by both infrastructure and conservation concerns. Cherry Hill resident Vandita Desai said she backed the measure primarily because of the county's commitment to preserving open space and improving access to nature.

"Any amount of money to me was worth it, because it's going to prevent floods from happening. It's going to protect the area and it is important that we preserve the space that we have so that future generations could also enjoy the same," Desai said. "Anything to make people go back to nature, whether they're children, teenagers or even adults, it's so good for our health to just take a walk in the woods, or to go kayaking, or do some fishing."

The measure also won praise from environmental groups that have long worked to promote water recreation in the region. Upstream Alliance, a nonprofit, helped launch a 13-mile water trail and runs a weekly paddling program, but is forced to cancel about 20% of its paddling events because of bacteria levels linked to combined sewer overflows.

"There are places where you can smell the sewage, sometimes the streets flood and sewage waters go into people's basements," said Don Baugh, the organization's president.

Baugh said the referendum will improve water quality and recreation. "For one, it's going to reduce flooding. It's also going to reduce sewage overflows. It's going to get some of our silt out of our waterways," he said. "And ultimately, it is going to boost the quality of life and really the economic development of Camden County. I think what's going to happen is that more and more people will come to say, 'I love to live here.'"

The push comes more than five decades after the federal Clean Water Act set swimmable waterways as a national goal. Older industrial cities like Camden and Philadelphia have struggled to meet that standard because their sewer systems combine stormwater and sewage in the same pipes, unlike modern systems that separate the two. Camden's main waterways often contain fecal bacteria at levels unsafe for swimming, fishing, or kayaking.

For Ell Bivona, public engagement coordinator for the municipal utilities authority, the stakes are personal.

"The goal at the end of the plan is that my daughter, who's now turning 6, could swim in Cooper River Lake someday," Bivona said. "The idea of people swimming in their local watering hole, it's something that I see in sepia-toned photos, it's not something that is even real to me, and it's something that I dream of and envision."