Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen Visited Superfund Sites Across Morris County

Despite voting against legislation created to fund Superfund site cleanup, Congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen toured sites in his district.

Joined by Environmental Protection Agency Deputy Regional Administrator Catherine McCabe and other state and local officials, Congressman Frelinghuysen toured several Superfund sites in Morris, Essex, and Sussex Counties yesterday.

“New Jersey has the most Superfund cleanup sites in the nation,” said EPA Deputy Regional Administrator Catherine McCabe. “Here more than anywhere, we can see how a strong national Superfund program is vital to protecting the health of people who live and work in every corner of the state.”

Superfund is the federal cleanup program that was established by Congress in 1980 to investigate and clean up the country’s most hazardous waste sites. Under the Superfund program, polluters are charged with paying for cleanup, rather than taxpayers. The EPA will consequently look for those parties responsible for the damage in order to hold them accountable for investigation and cleanup. Under the Superfund policy, taxpayers would only be held responsible if polluters aren't located.

According to the Sierra Club though, a Superfund Tax, part of proposed legislation which was defeated by a number of representatives, including Frelinghuysen, would help speed up the cleanup process.

“We keep falling further behind when it comes to cleaning up these toxic sites," said Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club. "The reason is because we don’t have enough money for adequate clean ups and we aren’t going after polluters. It is nice that the Congressman is taking tours, but he has failed to take any action. New Jersey has more Superfund Sites than any other state in the nation and we must make polluters pay, but the Congressman has opposed funding for the Superfund Tax."

According to the Sierra Club, the cleanup is imperative since the six sites visited by the Congressman can affect drinking water for residents of Morris County.

The Superfund Sites Congressman Frelinghuysen and his team visited in Morris County include:

The Radiation Technology, Inc. Superfund Site in Rockaway Township was used for testing and developing rocket motors and propellants. Groundwater at the site is contaminated with volatile organic compounds. Due to its complexity, the EPA's cleanup of the Radiation Technology site has been conducted in phases. Alliant Techsystems, a successor to a past owner and operator, is cleaning up the groundwater and soil under EPA oversight. The company installed systems to monitor groundwater and nearby drinking water wells. The EPA removed 75 rusting and leaking drums and containers from a building at the site in March 2013. The EPA chose a plan to remove and properly dispose of badly deteriorated drums buried at the site. That work was completed in July 2014. The EPA finalized a plan in September 2014 to demolish, remove, or use other cleanup measures to address buildings and structures that are contaminated with PCBs, asbestos, and lead. Asbestos was removed by EPA from buildings and structures in January through March 2015. Lead-based paint, remaining asbestos and PCBs will be addressed by EPA when funding is available.

The Rockaway Township Wells Superfund site, located in Rockaway Township, is a two-square-mile wellfield containing a cluster of three municipal wells within 100 feet of each other that are contaminated with various volatile organic chemicals from industrial buildings in the area. A NJDEP cleanup plan called for the treatment of the contaminated groundwater and the replacement of the township’s existing air stripper, which forces air through polluted groundwater to remove harmful chemicals. The air causes the chemicals to change from a liquid to a gas, which is then collected and cleaned. Sampling of several buildings has shown that chemical vapors have gotten into some buildings on the site. To address these problems, a system was installed in two buildings to prevent soil vapors from entering them. Groundwater from the area of drinking water supply wells is treated to remove the contamination and provide the community a safe source of drinking water.

The Rockaway Borough Wellfield Superfund Site includes three municipal water supply wells that provide drinking water to 11,000 people. In 1985, the NJDEP investigated the site and concluded that contamination found in the municipal water supply was coming from multiple source areas within the borough. The EPA investigated the contamination and determined that soil and groundwater were contaminated with tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), which are industrial solvents. EPA and responsible parties are addressing groundwater and soil contamination at different locations at the Site. A Potentially Responsible Party-lead groundwater extraction system has been in operation since 2006 for the Klockner and Klockner area of the Site. In November 2011, EPA began operating a groundwater treatment system to address PCE-contaminated groundwater in the East Main Street/Wall Street area of the site. In addition, work to remove and treat soil contaminated with lead at the Rockaway Borough site was completed in 2013. Currently, two soil vapor extraction treatment systems are used to reduce the volatile organic compounds in the soil, and two systems of pumps are used to bring the polluted groundwater to the surface where it can be cleaned.

Image via Aarchiball, Wikimedia Commons, used under Creative Commons.