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N.J. adds sites to toxic list; 1,500 at Shore
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Published in the Asbury Park Press
By TODD B. BATES,LYNN DUCEYand ALLISON GARVEY
STAFF WRITERS
Monmouth and Ocean counties have nearly 1,500 contaminated areas, ranging from small spills and leaking underground tank sites to massive Superfund hazardous waste dumps, according to a new state list.
Dover Township had the most tainted sites in the two counties -- 98 -- and Marlboro ranked first in Monmouth County with 83 sites, according to "Known Contaminated Sites in New Jersey," a report by the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The list, posted on the department's Web site last week, is designed to help citizens, real estate professionals and others learn about contaminated sites in their neighborhoods or about pollution on or near properties that are for sale.
Chemical pollution in soil, and in water supplies both underground and on the surface, threatens human health and the environment unless it is dealt with.
Arlene and William Key, who have been living on New Hampshire Avenue near the Lakewood Industrial Park for 10 years, said they get their well tested about twice a year just for peace of mind.
"Just because of the area we live in and the environment in general, we feel more comfortable having it checked every once in a while," said Arlene Key. "We don't worry about (contamination) on a daily basis. We just feel more comfortable checking it a couple times a year."
Key said the fact that the DEP's contamination list will be available online should be of great benefit for people who also want to monitor hazardous conditions in their neighborhoods.
"With well water you have to take precautions for peace of mind," she said.
But some questioned the way the list was compiled.
"I'm not happy with having contaminated sites," said Dover Township Committeeman Clarence E. "Bud" Aldrich III. "I'd like to have none. But they put everything on the list. We even had a couple pizza places that had dumped cooking oil at one time or another."
"A lot of these (sites on the current list) have already been cleaned up or are now in the remediation period so that now, it's monitoring and waiting to be taken off the list," Aldrich added.
The list includes about 12,648 sites statewide, or about 40 percent more than the 8,937 sites on a list released in 1997.
In the department's first list, released in 1994, Monmouth County had 390 sites and Ocean County had 208. Monmouth now has 1,040 sites, while Ocean has 478, according to the new list.
The numbers have increased since 1997 because more site owners are participating in the department's voluntary cleanup program -- in which those performing cleanups enter into agreements with the agency -- and more underground tanks have been closed in recent years, according to Loretta O'Donnell, a DEP spokeswoman.
Leaks often are discovered when tanks are removed from the ground. About 4,000, or roughly one-third, of the sites involve tank leaks, O'Donnell said.
In addition, "as people want to redevelop their properties, they're sampling more . . . so you're finding more" contamination, she said.
The vast majority of the sites involve small pollution cases; New Jersey has 111 entries on the Superfund list of the nation's worst hazardous waste sites -- more than any other state. Fifteen of those are in Monmouth and Ocean counties.
David Pringle, campaign director for the New Jersey Environmental Federation, said, "There's been a net increase of about 1,000 sites a year, so while that's very troubling, it's not surprising, and the state needs to be much more aggressive in cleaning up these sites as quickly as possible."
The cluster of childhood cancer in Dover Township "demonstrates that we need to do much more than the minimum required by law, and in fact we need stronger protections," Pringle said.
According to the department, the list includes sites where contamination of soil or ground water is confirmed, as well as sites where corrective work has been completed but various controls, maintenance and/or monitoring are required.
New Jersey has worked hard to identify and deal with contaminated sites, including Superfund sites, over the years, state officials have said.
Since the DEP began tracking cleanup progress in the 1970s, more than 20,000 sites have received "no further action" designations because cleanup work has been completed or was unnecessary, according to the DEP.
Lester W. Jargowsky, Monmouth County health officer, called the contaminated sites list "an excep-tionally valuable resource."
"We get a lot of requests (from) . . . people who are doing searches related to land acquisitions," Jar-gowsky said. "We refer them to the list, and then quite often they'll ask us if we have any data associated with that list."
But some owners of sites on the list have questioned its accuracy.
John De Silvestri, president of Keyport Marine Basin Inc. in Keyport, said an underground gasoline storage tank was pulled from the ground there in 1999 and no contamination was found at the site, which is on the list.
"All the tests are now clean, per-fect," he said, adding that he does not think the site should be on the list. He received a "no further action" letter, he said.
Robert M. Czech, township ad-ministrator in Middletown, which has 77 sites on the list -- the second-highest total in Monmouth County -- said a lot of them are apparently residential properties with underground fuel oil or sep-tic tanks.
"It really doesn't appear to be a substantive problem as far as Middletown is concerned, with all of these sites clearly under some remedial action if not completed," he said. "We really haven't had any type of health issue with re-spect to these sites."
George and Terri Somers of Park Avenue, Jackson, said they moved to the township from East Bruns-wick -- which has a municipal wa-ter system -- for the open space. They said they weren't worried about living in an area supplied by well water and don't live near any contaminated sites, but develop-ment in Jackson and around the state has them concerned.
"We were looking more or less for horses and open space," said George Somers. "But since we've moved here, the development has been just unbelievable. We're very concerned now with any de-velopment that may contaminate our wells."
In Dover Township, many of the listed sites -- including the Ciba-Geigy plant, the township landfill and various gas stations -- "were built and operated when there were no regulations at all," Al-drich said. "We are paying the price for a lot of things that were done years ago when there were no regulations and we didn't know the hazards. Now it's a lot tough-er for people to contaminate and pollute today."
Published on May 8, 2001
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