Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
Key events in Ciba-Geigy Corp.'s 53-year history in Dover Township:
· 1952: Toms River Chemical Corp. opens on a 1,400-acre site off Route 37 West. The company's arrival is greeted enthusiastically by county and state officials, and Toms River Chemical becomes the county's largest employer. The company manufactured dyes, plastics and resin additives.
· 1982: Ciba's dye plant is placed on the federal Superfund list after an investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency finds high levels of cancer-causing chemicals on the property.
· 1984: A break in Ciba's ocean outfall pipeline spills treated effluent onto Dover Township streets and causes a 3-foot sinkhole at Vaughn and Bay avenues. The pipeline break leads residents to begin questioning what is contained in the treated effluent, which was discharged 2,500 feet off the township's Ortley Beach section.
· 1986: Ciba begins trimming its operations at the Toms River plant, with dye and resin production being shifted to plants in Alabama and Louisiana.
· December 1991: Ciba's ocean outfall pipeline is shut down by order of New Jersey's Legislature.
· February 1992: Two former Ciba executives, William P. Bobsein and James A. McPherson, and the corporation admit to illegally dumping pollutants into two landfills on the company's property.
· March 1996: A groundwater treatment system -- which pumps up about 2.7 million gallons of contaminated ground water daily, treats it to remove pollutants and then recharges it back onto Ciba's property -- begins operating.
· December 1996: The last 170 production employees, most of whom worked blending dyes, are laid off. Only about 30 workers employed in the ongoing Superfund cleanup remain on site.
· February 2000: A public health assessment on the Ciba site, released by the state Department of Health and Senior Services and the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, contends Ciba posed a public health threat in the past because traces of dyes and nitrobenzene seeped into Dover Township's public drinking water wells in 1965-66.
· July 2000: The EPA recommends bioremediation -- a process using microbes to eat pollutants -- as the main method for cleaning up about 10 sources of contamination on the Ciba site. The cleanup work, which could be completed by 2010, is expected to cost about $92 million.
· September 2001: Ciba, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice reach a formal agreement that details the specifics of the future cleanup plan. Ciba agrees to pay about $92 million to clean up about 10 areas on its property that are believed to be the sources of a plume of groundwater pollution emanating from the site. Bioremediation will be the main cleanup method used on the site, and the bioremediation process is expected to take eight years to complete.
· October 2003: EPA officials announce launch of site cleanup at Ciba, with construction of buildings to be used in cleanup operation under way.
· December 2003: Employees of Sevenson Environmental Services begin removing drums of waste from an unlined landfill on the Ciba property.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 1/18/04
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