Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
DOVER TOWNSHIP -- The number of air monitors around the perimeter of the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. Superfund property should be increased to reassure residents that pollution cleanup at the site will not harm air quality in the area, several people said at a public hearing last night.
"I think we just need reassurance," said Marianne Borthwick, who lives in Manchester''s Pine Lake Park section, which borders on the Ciba site. "Ocean County has a history of trying to take care of problems after the fact."
Borthwick''s comments came at a lengthy public meeting held by the federal Environmental Protection Agency to discuss the air monitoring system that will be set up during the six- to eight-year cleanup of pollution sources at Ciba.
The meeting was the second in a series of three sessions to deal with issues related to air emissions from the cleanup operation, which includes excavating 145,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil from 10 pollution source areas on the property. Bioremediation, which involves using bacteria that already live on the property to break down and consume hazardous waste, will be the main cleanup method used on Ciba''s land.
Excavation will only take place about 30 days a year, according to Romona Pezzella, EPA''s remedial project manager for the site. While soil is being dug up and transported to a building where the remediation will take place, there will be three types of air monitoring done on the property to make sure emissions remain within acceptable levels.
Should an air monitoring device show levels of airborne contaminants above acceptable amounts, work will be stopped immediately, and workers at the site will initiate pollution control measures, Pezzella said. Those measures include wetting the soil or adding a foam agent that solidifies and acts as a cover.
Pezzella said "action levels" of airborne contaminants will be set, and work will be stopped if the amount of pollutants in the air exceeds those levels. She said the action levels, which will be discussed at a March 6 public meeting, will be extremely conservative, providing an early warning to stop work before emissions provide any type of threat to the surrounding community.
Technicians working at excavation sites will use hand-held monitors to measure the amounts of both volatile organic contaminants and particulates found in the air. Additional monitors, called "near field" monitors, will be set up about 300 feet away from the excavation site, Pezzella said.
Those monitors will be set in fixed locations but can be moved if the wind changes direction, according to Dave Williams, Ciba''s project manager for site remediation. There will be three downwind monitoring locations for near field monitors, and one upwind.
The third level of monitoring will be at the perimeter of the site. There will be six fixed monitoring locations at Ciba''s fence line and one mobile monitor. Last night, Ciba and EPA officials showed the proposed locations for the six fixed monitors.
Fixed monitors will be located along the fence line near the Oak Ridge neighborhood, the Summit East development, near Pine Lake Park, next to West Dover Elementary School, next to the Toms River, and along Route 37 West. These monitors will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to provide a record of the air quality at the site during the entire cleanup process, Williams said.
The site and near-field monitors will run only while excavation is going on. Data from all the monitors will be downloaded daily, and air quality reports will be produced, with the information disseminated to the public, Pezzella said.
Peter Hibbard, a member of Ocean County Citizens for Clean Water, suggested two more monitoring units be installed along the perimeter, with one placed behind the Wal-Mart store on Route 37, and another off Cardinal Drive in the Oak Ridge neighborhood.
Linda L. Gillick, who heads the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, said she believes monitors should be placed off-site as well.
"What do you have off-site so that we will know what kinds of exposures took place?" Gillick asked.
Pezzella said she does not favor off-site monitors because they would pick up contaminants in the air that are not related to the Ciba cleanup, such as car exhaust. But in response to a suggestion by Gillick, Pezzella said she would favor having the air monitoring system reviewed by an outside agency, perhaps Rutgers University''s Environmental and Occupational Health Services Institute.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 1/17/02
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