Published in the Asbury Park Press
An Asbury Park Press editorial
If Ciba-Geigy Specialty Chemicals wants to be a good corporate citizen, it should begin removing 38,000 chemical drums left in a landfill at the former Ciba-Geigy plant in Toms River.
Those drums were left in a lined landfill on the property, a situation that was legal because federal environmental laws were too weak. It's only a matter of time before the landfill will begin leaking toxic chemicals into the soil, threatening underground aquifers. That's what's happened with 35,000 drums dumped in an unlined landfill at the Ciba plant. Those drums will be removed under a cleanup ordered under the federal Superfund law.
Ciba-Geigy will pay $92 million for the cleanup, but has no plans to remove the drums in the lined landfill. Area residents understandably are not happy with that.
The chemical company and two of its executives pleaded guilty in 1992 to pollution charges. Even so, much of the dumping at the Ciba plant - which was Toms River Chemical Corp. until the late 1970s - violated no law. That made it no less reprehensible, however. Even in the mid-70's, plant officials had to know that dumping toxic chemicals into a hole in the ground would have long-term adverse consequences. The same is true of the outfall pipe from the plant, which continued to foul the coastal waters off Ocean County until 1991.
Nothing short of a complete cleanup of the mess at the old chemical plant should be acceptable to the people of Dover Township and the state of New Jersey. What happened at the plant demonstrates clearly that what is legal is not always what is right.
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