Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
DOVER TOWNSHIP -- Resolutions and letters have not yet worked. Can a petition drive started by a resident help convince the governor and the state Department of Environmental Protection to force the removal of and additional 30,000 drums from the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. Superfund site?
"It's an effort to work together," said Carol Benson, Camelot Drive, who more than a month ago began the petition drive.
Benson says almost everyone in town who is aware of the situation wants all drums removed from the Ciba property.
Benson has collected about 500 signatures on a petition asking Gov. McGreevey and DEP Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell to force Ciba to remove more than 30,000 drums from a lined landfill under the DEP's jurisdiction on the company's property. Drums are being removed from an unlined landfill at Ciba under a Superfund project.
Dover Township is known for its contentious and often divisive politics, but on this issue Democrats, Republicans and independents appear to be united.
The Township Committee last year adopted two resolutions asking that the drums be removed, and this year the Township Council -- after a change of government -- adopted a similar resolution.
The petition drive grew out of the more recent resolution, for which Councilman Michael J. Fiure asked residents to collect signatures in an attempt to show McGreevey and Campbell the importance of this issue.
Benson, who last year unsuccessfully sought a seat on the council as a member of the independent Your Election Slate ticket, took up the challenge. A resident of West Dover who lives within two miles of the Ciba site, Benson is a community activist and president of the West Dover Homeowners Association.
For years she has spoken out about Ciba, urging township officials not to use Dover funds to purchase a portion of the 1,400-acre Ciba site. Her concern about the Ciba property became even more personal in April 2000 when her 8-year-old grandson, Justin, died of brain cancer. Benson fears toxic waste at Ciba can pose a threat to children at the West Dover Elementary School.
The property is now owned by Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp., the successor company which is overseeing a massive cleanup of the site. Under a cleanup plan approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency, about 35,000 drums of chemical waste from Ciba's former industrial dye- and resin-making operations are being excavated from an unlined landfill on the property.
So far, about 14,000 drums have been removed, opened to check their contents, and shipped elsewhere for disposal.
In June, work will begin on soil cleanup at the site. About 150,000 cubic yards of soil will be excavated and treated through the bioremediation process, in which bacteria at the site are used to break down and consume contaminants.
Ciba will pay about $92 million to clean up the pollution source areas, and company officials estimate Ciba has already spent $200 million for the groundwater treatment system and other site mitigation.
But the plan allows more than 35,000 drums stored in a lined landfill on the property to remain when the cleanup is done.
The difference between the two landfills, DEP officials have said, is that one is lined and has a monitoring permit issued by the state, which allows continued monitoring of leachate collected from the former dump.
Benson, Mayor Paul C. Brush and the Township Council argue that even though the DEP has said that there is no evidence the lined landfill is leaking, there could be a problem with it in the future. They ask: Why not take all the drums out now to prevent a future problem?
The Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster has also asked repeatedly that all drums be removed from the property.
Benson said with cleanup work going on at Ciba, now is the time to remove all the drums.
"If they have all the expertise out there, all the equipment, all the people out there who know what has to be done to keep everybody safe, why can't they just take them out?" Benson asked. "I would be so relieved if they could just remove them all."
Last year, the township filed suit against Ciba Specialty, saying groundwater contamination from the Ciba property had reduced property values at neighboring Winding River Park, which Dover owns.
The lawsuit, championed by former Mayor John F. Russo Jr., also attempts to intervene in the cleanup process and re-sult in an order for removal of the drums. The township says the DEP's own documents sug-gest Ciba violated the terms of its state landfill permit by dumping hazardous chemical wastes in the lined landfill in the 1970s, even though the per-mit allowed only nonhazard-ous, nonindustrial waste to be placed there.
Hazardous chemicals including toluene have been found in leachate collected at the lined landfill, Dover officials say. It is not considered an immediate health hazard, but Dover's law-suit also contends DEP's own documents say the landfill is likely leaking.
"There is no evidence that the landfill itself is leaking," DEP spokesman Fred Mumford said. "The leachate collection system is working properly."
However, DEP officials have admitted that hazardous waste was dumped in the lined land-fill.
Mumford said that the town-ship's resolutions sent last year and earlier this year to the DEP are under review.
"I don't think any action has been taken to reopen discus-sions about the landfill," he said.
Meanwhile, it seems likely that the citizens committee and the governing body will continue their efforts to have all drums removed.
"Anything that could be done -- I don't care who gets credit for it as long as those drums are removed -- that's the main goal," said Councilman Fiure.
He said he plans to introduce another council resolution ask-ing that the drums be removed.
Benson said she will continue collecting signatures, pointing to the fact that the drums in the lined landfill are within 1,200 feet of the West Dover Elementary School.
"I am not just asking Dover Township residents to sign it," she said of the petition. "This affects Berkeley, Manchester, the whole area."
Published in the Asbury Park Press 5/04/04
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