Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
The state will consider suing Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. if the company does not remove more than 30,000 drums of waste from a lined landfill on its Dover Township property.
Bradley M. Campbell, state Department of Environmental Protection commissioner, said in a letter Tuesday to a Ciba executive that he has grown increasingly concerned about possible threats to the environment and public health if the landfill remains on site.
Campbell's letter — sent to Douglas J. Hefferin, Ciba's vice president for environment, health and safety — represents a huge victory for Dover Township officials who have called on the company to remove all drums from its Route 37 West site for more than two years and have repeatedly asked the DEP to revoke its permit for the lined landfill.
"I am just ecstatic. I feel like I should go out in the snow and make angels," Carol A. Benson said at a Dover Township Council meeting Tuesday night.
Benson, a Camelot Drive resident whose grandson died of brain cancer, had begun a petition drive last year asking for the removal of the drums from the landfill site known as Cell 1.
Linda L. Gillick, who leads the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, said in a telephone interview she was "thrilled" by the DEP's siding with the township.
"I want to commend Brad Campbell for really stepping up to the plate on this," said Gillick, who is also executive director of Ocean of Love, a support group for families of children with cancer.
Gillick also praised township officials for pushing the issue.
At their first bipartisan news conference, held Tuesday afternoon, Democratic Mayor Paul C. Brush and Republican Township Council President Gregory P. McGuckin were almost jubilant in announcing Campbell's letter, which was sent after township officials met with him Monday afternoon.
"What came out of that meeting is a major, major breakthrough in the township's efforts to have the drums removed from Cell 1," the mayor said.
"This is a tremendous day for Dover Township," said McGuckin, who represents Ward 4, which includes the nearly 1,400-acre Ciba property.
Gillick and local officials have argued that leaving more than 30,000 drums containing waste from Ciba's former industrial dye- and resin-making operations in a lined landfill on the company property would be creating a ticking time bomb that could threaten public health in the future.
They contend that all drums on the property should be removed now, while the federal Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing a massive pollution source cleanup at the site.
But Ciba officials have countered that the lined landfill is a permitted facility that is totally different from the unlined dump where more than 47,000 drums of waste were removed over the past year.
Township officials have contended that DEP documents indicate the lined landfill may be leaking, which Ciba disputes. Ciba spokeswoman Donna Jakubowski reiterated the company's stance Tuesday, saying Ciba believes the township's information is outdated.
"There were improvements made to the landfill in the early '90s: A new cap was put on, and 18 additional monitoring wells were installed," Jakubowski said. "The township's claims are based on documents that date back nearly 20 years and don't reflect conditions today."
She said Ciba sends monitoring data twice a year to the DEP, and the data show "the landfill is not leaking. The landfill is functioning; it's functioning properly."
"The material left in the landfill at this point is best left undisturbed," Jakubowski said. "We prefer to keep the material in the landfill so that we can monitor it."
McGuckin's announcement about Campbell's letter at the Township Council meeting drew a round of applause from the audience.
One of the most emotional members of the crowd was Benson, whose petition drive asked Campbell and then-Gov. James E. McGreevey to force Ciba to remove the drums.
Benson said she finally sent the petitions to the state on Jan. 31, the birthday of her grandson, Justin, who was 8 years old when he died in April 2000.
"I sent it out on Justin's birthday, and that must have worked," Benson told Brush and the council.
She said she believed Campbell had decided to support the township's position on the issue "because we've been persistent."
Former Ciba-Geigy employee Bill Webb of Shady Lane said, "I want to thank the mayor and council for their diligence in getting Ciba to do what they should have done years ago."
Council members gave kudos to Benson; Bruce Anderson, the president of Toxic Environment Affects Children's Health; and Ocean of Love, for their steady lobbying efforts on the Ciba drum issue.
Anderson and his family have picketed several times outside Ciba's entrance on Oak Ridge Parkway, carrying signs demanding that the drums be removed.
"The thanks go out to the citizens who have really held our feet to the fire on this," said Ward 1 Councilwoman Maria Maruca. "This council will not let up until all those drums are removed from Ciba."
McGuckin agreed.
"This is just a first step. We will continue to work together to make sure that site is clean," he said. "This should send a clear message to them that the township and state are united."
The DEP's initial permit for the lined landfill on the Ciba site prohibited the dumping of hazardous waste there, but DEP officials have since said that hazardous wastes were placed in the dump, which operated from about 1977 to 1982.
In his letter, Campbell said that samples of leachate from Cell 1 show the presence of toluene, chlorobenzene, ethylbenzene, benzene and xylene, all known or suspected carcinogens. He said his concern has been heightened because "each of these contaminants increased in concentration between sampling events in 2003 and 2004."
Campbell said he is believes the landfill's PVC liner "will become prone to deterioration, damage and eventual failure as the solvents leak from drums and soil inside the landfill and interact with the liner."
Campbell chided Ciba for what he termed its "recalcitrance" in resolving liability the state contends the company has for groundwater contamination in the area. In 2003, Campbell indicated that the state planned to seek compensation from the company for groundwater pollution caused by Ciba.
Campbell said then he hoped the company would reach an agreement with the state to pay for the damage to natural resources caused by Ciba's manufacturing operations. On Tuesday, Campbell said the company has "chosen to dispute the department's methodology rather than resolve its liability."
The DEP is poised to have the state attorney general sue Ciba to gain compensation for the damage, and it is considering administrative steps and litigation to address potential risks of Cell 1, Campbell wrote to Hefferin.
Campbell urged Hefferin and other senior Ciba officials to meet with him and discuss the issues raised by his letter. He said that township officials will be closely consulted if such a discussion takes place.
Gillick said if Ciba resists removing the drums, she and other members of the citizens action committee will do everything they can to make sure they are removed.
"We will stand shoulder to shoulder on this," Gillick said.
Jakubowski, the Ciba spokeswoman, said, "I am sure he (Hefferin) will be in contact with the commissioner shortly."
Campbell's letter followed a Monday meeting in Trenton arranged in part by Ocean County Republican Chairman George R. Gilmore, former Attorney General David Samson and Lori Grifa, who works with Samson at the Orange law firm of Wolff & Samson, hired last year as the township's affordable-housing counsel.
Among those in attendance were Brush, McGuckin, Gilmore and Planning Board Chairman Salvatore Mattia, Brush's closest political adviser. Gilmore attended as a representative of the township's Recreation Committee, which is interested in developing some of the uncontaminated Ciba land for recreational use once all drums are removed.
Township officials in the past had been frustrated by the DEP's unwillingness to join Dover in an effort to force Ciba to remove the drums. In 2003, the township sued Ciba, seeking payment for environmental damages at Winding River Park, located near the Superfund site.
The lawsuit also attempted to intervene in the cleanup operation and force the removal of the drums. That portion of the lawsuit was dismissed by Superior Court Judge Edward M. Oles.
Brush, then a candidate for office, criticized the lawsuit and, upon taking office last year, vowed to improve relations with state officials. He and council members, who have sometimes quarreled over township issues, have been in total agreement that the drums must be removed.
He met late last summer with McGreevey to discuss the drum issue.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 03/9/05
|
