Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
TOMS RIVER -- Superior Court Judge Edward M. Oles has ordered the Department of Environmental Protection to join a lawsuit Dover Township filed last year against Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., the current owner of the former Ciba-Geigy Superfund site.
DEP spokesman Fred Mumford said yesterday that the department has joined the suit reluctantly.
"We don't feel we should be part of this suit," he said. "We didn't voluntarily join the suit. We think the suit is between the town and Ciba, and that's how it's best handled."
What position the state will take concerning the issues in the lawsuit was not clear last night.
On Friday, Mayor Paul C. Brush hailed the judge's decision, saying the DEP had now joined forces with Dover in an attempt to force the removal of thousands of drums from a lined landfill on the Ciba property.
Mumford said yesterday that the DEP's stance toward the lined landfill has not changed, and the agency intends to continue overseeing the monitoring of leachate collected from the landfill. He said the agency will also continue negotiating with Ciba officials to seek compensation for damages to groundwater pollution caused by the company's industrial dye- and resin-making operations.
Mumford said DEP officials have met with Ciba to discuss payment for damaging natural resources under the state's Spill Compensation and Control Act.
The township filed suit last year against Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., seeking compensation for reduced property values at Winding River Park, which is located adjacent to the Ciba site. The township's suit claims groundwater contamination that leached from the Superfund site has lowered property values at Winding River and reduced the ways Dover can use the property.
The township's suit also asks the court to allow Dover to intervene in the ongoing cleanup operation at the Ciba site. Dover is attempting to force Ciba to remove about 35,000 drums from a lined landfill at the property.
The current cleanup plan for the site calls for the removal of about 35,000 drums from an unlined landfill at Ciba. That work is under way, and more than 14,000 drums have been excavated from the landfill.
But the cleanup plan allows the drums in the lined landfill to remain. That landfill is overseen by the DEP, which issues the monitoring permit that allows leachate collected from the dump to be regularly tested for pollutants.
The township's suit argues that the DEP's own documents indicate the landfill's liner is leaking, and it notes that Ciba violated the terms of its initial permit for the landfill, which called for it to be filled with only nonhazardous waste.
DEP officials have said hazardous wastes were dumped in the landfill, but their own records show no evidence that the liner is leaking.
Council President Gregory P. McGuckin said the DEP has not joined with the township to demand removal of the drums, and he argued the agency had only agreed to join the lawsuit as a plaintiff so it would not be named as a defendant in the matter.
"They will not agree to demand that those drums be removed," McGuckin said. "They're not on our side. We don't need their help if they're not willing to join us. They're either with us or they're against us."
Published in the Asbury Park Press 5/04/04
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