Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
DOVER TOWNSHIP -- The federal Environmental Protection Agency will host an information meeting Jan. 19 to discuss cleanup methods for the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. site.
The meeting will be held at 7 p.m. in the Rosendahl Room at the Quality Inn, Route 37 East at Mule Road.
The meeting will focus on seven alternatives proposed by Ciba for cleaning up about 21 potential source areas of pollution on the site of a former dye-manufacturing plant, off Route 37 West.
The alternatives range from letting natural processes break down the chemicals, to excavating contaminated soil and other material and trucking it to out-of-state incinerators at a cost of about $201 million.
EPA officials say they have made no decisions about which cleanup method will be used at the site.
Thermal desorption, which involves heating the soil to temperatures from 500 to 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit to vaporize contaminants, could be the most technically feasible alternative, according to a draft feasibility study.
But that process also seems likely to generate the most opposition.
At an information forum in November, Peter L. Hibbard, a member of Ocean County Citizens for Clean Water, said he does not believe thermal desorption will ever garner community support.
Hibbard and some other residents have recommended using bio-remediation, which involves using microbes to break down pollutants, because they believe it is the safest method of cleaning up the Ciba site.
EPA officials have said that bio-remediation is not effective at cleaning up all the contaminants on the Ciba site, and would have to be supplemented by other technologies.
EPA spokeswoman Natalie Loney said the agency is also planning to conduct public tours of a site in Bergen County where thermal desorption is being used to clean up soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. A tour of a bio-remediation site at Ciba will also be scheduled, Loney said.
Both tours will be held on Saturday, Jan. 22.
Anyone interested in signing up for the tours should contact Loney at (212) 637-3639, or (800) 346-5009.
Loney said residents will be able to see a thermal desorption unit in action at the former Industrial Latex plant in Wallington, Bergen County. Industrial Latex produced chemical adhesives and rubber at the site, where soil is contaminated with PCBs.
"We really want people to get a sense of what is there," Loney said of the Industrial Latex site. "One of the interesting things about the Industrial Latex site is that it's so close to a residential area."
The thermal desorption unit on the Latex site went into operation in late March or early April last year, and the cleanup operation is expected to be completed by March, Loney said. So far, the biggest complaint nearby residents have had about the thermal desorption work is the noise of bulldozers, which move soil at night to make sure the unit has a constant supply of soil, she said.
In addition to the site tour and information meeting, EPA has also scheduled a second public availability session on the Ciba cleanup, to be held from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 26 at the Quality Inn. The session will allow residents to question EPA and Ciba officials on a one-on-one basis.
Published: January 6, 2000
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