Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
TOMS RIVER -- The Dover Township Committee has agreed to pay environmental lawyer Robert Cash up to $25,000 more to pursue a lawsuit against the former Ciba-Geigy Corp.
The committee unanimously agreed to pay Cash the additional monies, which are in addition to the $15,000 the committee previously authorized to initiate the suit in September.
Mayor John F. Russo Jr. said the extra funds are needed so that Cash can respond to Ciba's answer to the township's lawsuit, which is expected to be filed later this week.
"We are going to run into a transition period with our government, and he wanted us to be prepared," Russo said of Cash. The township's governing body will switch from a five-member township committee to a mayor and seven-member township council next month.
Mayor-elect Paul C. Brush last week indicated that he likely will support continuing the lawsuit against Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., Ciba's successor company, which now owns the Superfund site off Route 37 West.
Brush had criticized the suit during a contentious election campaign. Brush, who ran as an independent, defeated Republican Russo by less than 400 votes and will be sworn in next month as Dover's first directly elected mayor.
After Brush listened to a presentation by Cash on the lawsuit's merits, he said enough "compelling information" had been presented to warrant going forward with the litigation. The lawsuit still will be reviewed by the lawsuit review team Brush has appointed, which is headed by local lawyer Harry Levin.
The township filed suit against Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. in October, seeking damages from the chemical company for loss of property values at township-owned Winding River Park. The township's suit says a plume of groundwater contamination emanating from Ciba touches a corner of the park and has reduced property values there.
Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. is the company that now owns the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. Superfund site, located off Route 37 West and Oak Ridge Parkway.
Dover also is attempting to intervene in the ongoing cleanup of pollution source areas at Ciba, and the township hopes to force the state Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Environmental Protection Agency to remove about 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. The township says some of the DEP's own documents indicate the landfill's liner may be leaking.
"Once Paul concurred that the case was real and not a political stunt, we felt we could extend Mr. Cash's contract," Russo said.
Also last night, the committee introduced salary ordinances, which will give the township's blue- and white-collar workers, as well as a handful of nonunion employees, 4 percent annual raises in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.
Administrator Barbara A. Iasillo said the new contracts will be retroactive to July 1 and will cover slightly more than 150 Dover employees.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 12/10/03
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