Published in the Asbury Park Press
By DOUG ROBERTSON
CORRESPONDENT
MANCHESTER -- The Township Council is asking the federal Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate the risks of each option before settling on a method to clean up the Superfund site at the former Ciba-Geigy Corp.
The council agreed last night to ask the EPA to perform a risk assessment of the two most likely methods to be employed to clean up about 21 pollution sources there: thermal desorption and bioremediation.
Thermal desorption involves heating polluted soil to vaporize and remove contaminants. If done properly, the process will only release carbon dioxide and water into the air, said Peter L. Hibbard of Ocean County Citizens for Clean Water.
However, this process has not worked that well at other cleanup sites, Hibbard told the council last night. An EPA cleanup of a Superfund site in Pennsylvania with the thermal desorption method has produced odors, visible vapor clouds and dust particles, Hibbard said.
Bioremediation involves the use of microbes to eat contaminants in the soil. This process is extremely successful, and if done properly, the risk is almost negligible, Hibbard said.
The down side is that bioremediation would take eight to nine years to clean the site. The thermal desorption would take one to two years, Hibbard said.
"The question now is how clean is clean and what risk is acceptable?" Hibbard said. "In my mind, the risk that is acceptable is the risk that is the smallest. We can't risk these chemicals staying in the ground. We have to do something."
The risk either of these methods would pose to surrounding communities would be determined by the EPA, using information from other Superfund site cleanups, said Maryanne Borthwick of the Pine Lake Park section, who was appointed by Mayor Michael Fressola the township's liaison to the EPA's public hearings about the Ciba site.
"I asked them if air-quality tests were ever done afterword at cleanup sites or health assessment of nearby residents, and they said it was never done," Borthwick said. "So really, we don't know what effect the cleanup will have on people around the area."
There are an estimated 35,000 drums of waste buried on the Ciba property.
An EPA public hearing is set for 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Quality Inn, Route 37 west in Dover Township. Published on January 25, 2000
Published: January 25, 2000
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