Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
DOVER TOWNSHIP -- Two documents written by officials at the state Department of Environmental Protection prove the DEP knows the liner of a landfill at the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. site is leaking, Mayor John F. Russo Jr. said.
Russo released the documents, saying they will be part of the township's lawsuit against Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., the successor company to Ciba-Geigy.
But DEP spokesman Fred Mumford said one of the documents was written in 1988, before a cap was installed on the landfill to prevent contamination from leaking into the groundwater. The 1988 memorandum refers to "a history of leaking," involving the liners of two landfills on the property, one of them being the lined landfill that the township argues is leaking.
A 1996 memorandum refers to a "groundwater contamination problem at the landfill."
Ciba's response to that document, released by Mumford yesterday, points out that extensive investigations of the lined landfill show that although there is a groundwater contamination problem in the "vicinity of the landfill," it is not believed to emanate from the closed dump.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency, which is overseeing the Superfund cleanup at the Ciba site, has identified 10 pollution source areas on the property that have contributed to a massive plume of groundwater contamination.
The township filed suit against Ciba earlier this month, seeking damages from the chemical company for loss of property values at township-owned Winding River Park. The township's suit says the plume of groundwater contamination emanating from Ciba touches a corner of the park.
Dover is also seeking to intervene in the cleanup of pollution source areas at the Ciba site in an attempt to force the DEP and the EPA to remove more than 30,000 drums from a lined landfill on the property.
The cleanup of pollution source areas, which is scheduled to begin late this year or early next year, includes excavating and removing thousands of drums of hazardous waste that were dumped in an unlined landfill on the property decades ago.
But it does not include the removal of more than 30,000 drums of waste that were placed in the lined landfill. Representatives of the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, and other residents, have been asking for years that the drums be removed from the lined landfill as well.
Many of the drums dumped in the lined landfill contained hazardous waste from Ciba's industrial dye- and resin-making operations.
Russo has argued that the township's lawsuit could force the EPA and DEP to reconsider their rejection of removing the drums from the lined dump.
Russo said the township's environmental attorney, Robert Cash, authorized the release of the DEP documents in response to statements made last week by DEP officials that they have no evidence that the lined landfill on the Ciba property is leaking.
The lined landfill operated from about 1977 to 1982. Under current cleanup plans, it is to stay on the Ciba property.
The Township Committee has twice asked Gov. McGreevey and DEP Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell to revoke the permit for the landfill. DEP spokesman Mumford pointed out, however, that the landfill is not an active dump, and the permit merely allows monitoring of the landfill to make sure hazardous substances aren't leaching into the environment.
"I find it very disturbing that the DEP case manager would intentionally mislead the public and intentionally hurt Dover Township's legal position in our lawsuit against Ciba-Geigy by misrepresenting what the DEP file states about Cell No. 1 leaking hazardous substances," Russo said.
That was in reference to comments made last week by Bob Marcolini, the DEP's new case manager for the Ciba site, who said his review of the agency's files found that the landfill is not leaking any hazardous substances into the ground water.
DEP spokesman Mumford said yesterday that recent reviews of the leachate collected at the lined landfill show the level of hazardous substances in the leachate has actually decreased in recent years. Leachate is collected between liners of a landfill.
"We plan to continue monitoring there for the foreseeable future," Mumford said. He said the DEP also plans to meet shortly with EPA officials and members of the citizens action committee to discuss their request to have all drums removed from the Ciba site.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 10/31/03
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