Published in the Asbury Park Press
Persistence is beginning to pay off for the citizens and officials in Dover Township who have been pushing for a complete cleanup at the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. property.
Many were jubilant upon hearing of Tuesday's letter from state Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell, telling Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. the state may sue if the company doesn't remove the remaining 30,000 drums of hazardous waste from a lined landfill there.
Dover residents and officials should keep up the pressure until every last drum is gone. It doesn't appear that the chemical company will readily agree to the state's call. Ciba's response to Campbell's letter was to argue that the lined landfill is safe, and that reports of leaks were from 20-year-old data that's outdated because of later improvements.
Campbell's letter refutes that. Samples of leachate from the lined landfill site showed an increase in the concentration of contaminants in 2003 and 2004, and Campbell said he believes the landfill's liner will deteriorate over time because of solvents leaking from the drums inside. That's a risk Dover residents shouldn't be asked to take.
A Ciba spokeswoman said "the material left in the landfill at this point is best left undisturbed." Wrong. The drums inside the landfill are best removed — as were the 47,000 taken from an unlined landfill last year — far away from homes, from schools, from playgrounds and from people. Hazardous waste wasn't supposed to be disposed of on-site in the first place. The company owes the town a complete cleanup and must be held accountable.
The spokeswoman also said Ciba prefers to "keep the material in the landfill so that we can monitor it." That's not going to fly in Dover Township, where residents have little faith in Ciba's monitoring efforts. The company is still fighting liability issues on groundwater pollution there, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing a massive pollution cleanup at the site.
Linda L. Gillick, who leads the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster, said members of the committee "will stand shoulder to shoulder" to make sure all the drums are removed if Ciba resists. Campbell and the DEP must stay lined up with them, and not settle for anything less.
Published in the Asbury Park Press 03/11/05
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