Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
TOMS RIVER -- A meeting on plans for air monitoring of emissions from the cleanup of the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. Superfund site will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Quality Inn, 815 Route 37 West.
The meeting is one of a series of sessions being held by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to explain the plan to clean up 10 pollution source areas at the Ciba property, now owned by Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp.
Under a legal agreement reached last September by Ciba, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice, Ciba will spend about $92 million over eight years to clean up pollution sources at the site that are contributing to a groundwater pollution plume that migrates off the company's property.
Bioremediation, which involves using bacteria already living on the property to break down and consume hazardous waste, will be the main cleanup method used on Ciba's land. An estimated 145,000 cubic yards of soil, which contain volatile organic contaminants, will be dug up and treated.
About 5,000 cubic yards of soil will be dug up and removed for off-site treatment and disposal. Excavation work will start in about 18 months.
EPA officials have said that workers will not excavate dirt when wind and weather conditions are unfavorable.
But residents at a December EPA meeting raised concerns about the proximity of the West Dover Elementary School to the sites. The school is about 1,800 feet from one of the work areas; some houses in Dover's Oak Ridge neighborhood are about 900 feet away.
The air monitoring meeting will give residents information about the instruments that will be used to measure emission levels in air around the sites.
Residents will be able to learn where air monitoring will be conducted, how data about air monitoring will be made available, and what types of monitors will be used to determine if emission levels have risen to a point where work should be stopped.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 1/14/02
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