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A History of Pollution
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For many years Ciba Geigy polluted the Toms River (a River that flows
into Barnegat Bay) with waste from its dye manufacturing facility. By
the mid-1960s, people living in Toms River noticed that their drinking
water had a medicinal taste and smell. Ciba Geigy did some tests that
showed that the Holly Plant well field, the single largest source of
drinking water in Toms River, was polluted with river water containing
then dye wastes and other chemicals. Neither Ciba nor the Toms River
Water Company disclosed this to the public, the health department, or
any public official. Instead, they quietly decided to treat the Holly
Plant water with other chemicals in order to eliminate the taste and
smell. Meanwhile, Ciba Geigy was still discharging tons of pollutants
into the river. We don't know whether toxic chemicals remained in Holly
Plant drinking water after 1967, since no Holly Plant well was sampled
for dye wastes again until 1996. We do know that at least some of the
polluted wells remained in use for public consumption until 1983.
Over 25 years ago, a waste hauler illegally dumped thousands of
55-gallon drums of chemical waste in our town of Dover Township (Toms
River) New Jersey. The chemicals were from the manufacturing of plastics
produced in another area of New Jersey, but disposed here. First, he
dumped approximately 2000 drums of this toxic chemical waste in our
clean landfill. This went on until an explosion and fire occurred, at
which time they stopped accepting the waste. The hauler then went to a
nearby farm and requested permission to store the waste drums there. He
then proceeded to empty the drums onto the farmland and buried any
damaged ones. When the farmer found out what he was doing, he asked
him to clean up his mess and move out. The hauler refused and later was
arrested. Private wells in the area became undrinkable and potable
water had to be brought in, until public water could be hooked up. This
farm became known as the Reich Farm.
Beginning in 1970, Toms River Water Company (TRWC ) began to develop the
Parkway well field, which went on to become an even larger source of
drinking water for the community than Holly Plant. In 1971, thousands of
drums from a Union Carbide chemical plant were found dumped at Reich
Farm about one mile north of the Parkway well field. These wastes
included hundreds, if not thousands, of different types of chemicals.
Instead of trying to intercept the flow of chemicals to the Parkway well
field, the EPA and Union Carbide decided to use the Parkway wells
themselves to capture the pollution. They chose to clean up the
pollution after it reached these wells. The cleanup method they chose
was air stripping. This only cleaned out some of the chemicals --
volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Many other pollutants, such as
semi-volatiles, which could not be precisely identified (TlCs or
tentatively identified compounds) were never tested for specifically in
the water.
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