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DEP: Ciba site isn't leaking
The claim contradicts the statements of Mayor John F. Russo Jr., who said earlier this month the DEP's own files show evidence that the landfill's liner may have leaked.
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Published in the Ocean County Observer
By JOHN HAZARD
Staff Writer
TOMS RIVER -- Representatives of the state Department of Environmental Protection said yesterday a landfill on the Ciba-Geigy property is not leaking, despite the claims of Dover officials.
During a meeting of the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster yesterday at town hall, Bob Marcolina, the newly appointed case manager responsible for the DEP's monitoring the Ciba site, told the group "we have no evidence the landfill is leaking."
The claim contradicts the statements of Mayor John F. Russo Jr., who said earlier this month the DEP's own files show evidence that the landfill, officially named Cell No. 1, contains hazardous toxins prohibited under the DEP permit for the site and that those toxins may have compromised the landfill's liner and leaked. Russo's statement came in announcing a lawsuit against Ciba Specialties Corp., for damages to the township's Winding River Park, which sits next to the Ciba site and has depreciated in value since it was revealed the former dye and resin manufacturing plant had leaked polluted groundwater in the region, including groundwater beneath the park.
Another landfill on the site was found to be the source of some that contamination and is being emptied.
Marcolina said, while hazardous waste may have entered Cell No. 1, none has leaked.
"There may have been hazardous waste dumped into that landfill," Marcolina said. "But we have not seen it come out."
"We would see it in the leak detection system, or the monitoring wells, and we haven't," he said.
Russo said last night he is resolute in his belief that the landfill has leaked.
"Our two environmental lawyers, experts in the field, have determined the DEP's own files show otherwise," he said. "In the file, DEP experts found chemical plumes from undetermined sources in monitoring wells. Those wells were the ones surrounding that cell No. 1."
Russo, the Dover Township Committee and the Citizens Action Committee have asked the DEP to revoke Ciba's right to maintain the landfill forcing the company to removed drums of toxic waste believed to be dumped there.
"I want those drums out of there," said Linda Gillick, Linda L. Gillick, who chairs the CACCCC. "Why do we have to wait five or eight or 20 years until there is a problem. This town deserves a proactive response."
"Even without evidence of leaking (the DEP has) the legal authority to revoke the permit," Russo said. "Ciba violated it from day one, when they dumped hazardous chemicals in a landfill only approved for non-hazardous chemicals. The DEP is suspect for allowing Ciba to operate like this."
Published in the Ocean County Observer 10/21/03
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