Published in the Ocean County Observer
By DON BENNETT
Staff Writer
TOMS RIVER -- Ciba Speciality Chemicals Corp. is likely to get a five-year extension of its permit to continue operating a landfill at its Superfund site in West Dover.
The state Department of Environmental Protection has prepared a draft of the permit renewal that would allow Ciba to keep dumping what the DEP says is non-hazardous sludge from its groundwater treatment operation, and leachate from the landfill, in the lined dump.
Meanwhile Peter Hibbard, president of Ocean County Citizens for Clean Water, says there's a dispute over whether the landfill should be removed as part of the Superfund cleanup.
Hibbard said the DEP favors its removal, fearing it will become a future pollution source, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency doesn't want it added to the cleanup plan.
"It's a jurisdictional dispute as they play hot potato," Hibbard said.
He's studying the regulations that will govern the future operation of the landfill.
"If it's well-regulated, it's a necessary evil," Hibbard said. If not, he's promising to have more to say.
It's the same landfill where Ciba-Geigy dumped toxic chemicals illegally in 1984, leading to the indictment of the firm and two of its executives, who pleaded guilty in a record $64 million plea bargain in 1992.
Unlike past dumps on the property, which are continuing to leak toxic chemicals into the groundwater, this one is designed to prevent the contamination of ground and surface waters.
It has two composite liners, a double leachate collection system to gather liquids that flow through the sludge, and a groundwater monitoring system to look for leaks in the liners.
The leachate goes back into the water treatment system Ciba is using the try to halt the spread of contaminated groundwater while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency puts the final touches on a plan to unearth buried toxic wastes on the site and treat them using bacteria to remove the toxins. Drummed waste buried in a separate landfill will be unearthed, carted away, and treated elsewhere.
Ciba pumps and treats more than 2.5 million gallons of tainted water each day, removing the toxic contaminants before the water is allowed to seep back into the ground on the plant site.
According to the proposed DEP permit, it is the sludge from that process that is going into the landfill.
Earlier, when dyes and plastic additives were made by Ciba-Geigy at the site between 1952 and 1996, toxic chemicals and wastes from earlier waste treatment processes were buried on the 1,300-acre site, contaminating the soil and groundwater.
The EPA has fashioned a two-part cleanup for the site, which has been on the Superfund list since 1983.
The groundwater treatment is designed to keep the huge plume of contaminated groundwater from spreading to the east. Eliminating the toxic dumps is the second phase of the cleanup, the one the public has until Aug. 15 to comment about before the EPA puts its final stamp of approval on the use of bioremediation - sped-up attacks by bacteria - on the tainted soil.
The DEP is also proposing to recognize the shift in ownership of the Superfund site, from Ciba-Geigy Corp. to Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., in the draft permit renewal.
While the permit will also allow the continued use of four landfill cells, only one of them is now in use.
The public has 30 days to submit comments to to Thomas Sherman, Assistant Director, Office of Permitting and Technical Programs, Division of Solid and Hazardous Waste, PO Box 414, Trenton, N.J., 08625-0414.
Published on July 21, 2000
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