So. Bruns. toxic site cleanup in question
BY CHRIS MURINO Staff Writer

SOUTH BRUNSWICK - According to a report completed last month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Inspector General, neither the EPA nor the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) did enough to make clean-up progress at seven old toxic sites, including the Jones Industrial Services Landfill located in the township.

The seven sites were listed on the National Priorities List (NPL) for over 20 years, but have still not been completely cleaned up. The report recommends that the EPA's Region 2, which covers New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, take lead on these projects with help from the DEP.

The Office of Management and Budget had requested this report on the backlog of Superfund sites. The report focused on sites in New Jersey because they have 38 of the 144 sites that were on the NPL for more than 20 years, which is 26 percent of them, more than any other state.

The report states a few reasons why these cleanups were not effective. One of these reasons was delays.

"Delays occurred primarily because New Jersey and Region 2 did not use available authorities to prevent delays and provide internal controls," the report stated.

The report also stated that as the lead agency, the NJDEP did not do enough to request comments from Region 2. It usually took NJDEP about two and a half months to respond to potentially responsible parties (PRPs), but it sometimes took even longer. Two times it took them over a year.

The NJDEP also did not hold the PRPs accountable for delays in performing cleanups.

The report also had problems with the EPA's Web site. Progress that was being made on the sites was not communicated to the public.

"EPA did not want to post information in the profile until a final remedial action had been implemented," the report stated.

The report said that the community deserves to be updated on this information.

Irene Kropp, of the DEP, responded in an addendum to the report by saying that it was unnecessarily biased because it just focused on New Jersey.

"Of the more than 50 states, territories and Indian tribes, the Inspector General's office focused on just one state, New Jersey," Kropp wrote. "Then, within that state, the report includes only state lead sites, ignoring federal lead sites."

Kropp also stated that New Jersey had the most sites that weren't cleaned up because they had by far the most sites on the NPL. She also disagreed with the statement that neither the EPA nor the DEP took actions needed to ensure progress at the Superfund site cleanups.

"All of the sites are well along in the clean-up process," Kropp wrote.

Kropp also wrote about what specific things had been done at the Jones Industrial Landfill in the township, including a pump and treat ground water system and biosparge treatment technology.

"The groundwater is responding to the treatment technology with consistently decreasing contaminant trends," Kropp wrote."

Mayor Frank Gambatese has not read the report yet, but seemed to agree with the notion that the EPA and NJDEP were not doing their jobs.

"This has been on the backburner for at least the 10 years I've been on this council," he said. "It's certainly a landfill that should be cleaned."

Gambatese added, "Some of the toxins are going into Monroe and contaminating their land."