Published in the Asbury Park Press
An Asbury Park Press editorial
There's no reason for the state to allow the contractors removing drums from the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. property in Dover Township to do half the job. Work is continuing on excavating 35,000 drums of chemical waste from an unlined landfill at the Superfund site.
But there are another 30,000 or more drums dumped in a lined landfill at the site. The Department of Environmental Protection has no plans for ordering them removed because its monitoring of leachate there has not yielded evidence of leakage. That tempts fate, something residents of the West Dover area cannot afford.
One of those neighbors, Carol Benson, wonders whether living near Ciba had anything to do with the death of her 8-year-old grandson to brain cancer. She also fears toxic waste from the property could threaten children at the nearby West Dover Elementary School. And she's doing something about it.
Benson has launched a petition drive asking Gov. McGreevey and DEP Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell to force Ciba's successor company to remove the drums from the lined landfill, too. Her campaign has the support of the mayor, the Township Council and the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, a group formed in response to reports of a high incidence of childhood cancer. The petition already bears about 500 signatures.
If the DEP forces Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. to expand the project, it's apt to double the $92 million the company has committed to clean the pollution. It has already spent $200 million for a groundwater treatment system and other site cleanup. As long as it is overseeing the removal of some drums, it might as well have them all removed. Ciba is responsible for the drums, which contain the dangerous residue of the former industrial dye and resin making plant first called Toms River Chemical and later Ciba-Geigy.
"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.
Her reasoning is hard to dispute. The potential for the dumped chemicals to cause a health hazard is too great for the DEP to ignore. The state concedes that hazardous waste was dumped at the lined landfill. The best way to ensure that the drums' contents pose no danger is to get rid of them all.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 5/06/04
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