By Sandy Bauers, Inquirer Staff Writer
One upside of the economic downturn is that some of the our region's most contaminated sites will finally get cleaned up.
Eight Superfund sites in New Jersey and two in Pennsylvania will
receive as much as $170 million in funding to advance or complete their
cleanups, the Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday.
The money is part of $600 million in federal stimulus funding going to
sites in 28 states. The intent is not just to clean up the properties,
but also to provide jobs.
"EPA has an answer to these challenging economic times," EPA
Administrator Lisa Jackson said in a statement. "Under the Recovery
Act, we're getting harmful pollutants and dangerous chemicals out of
these communities and putting jobs and investment back in."
The bulk of the money for this region - as much as $160 million - is
headed for New Jersey, which has more Superfund sites than any other
state.
John Pendergrass, senior attorney at the nonprofit Environmental Law
Institute, called the infusion of federal money "significant compared
to what the business-as-usual has been."
The 2008 appropriation for Superfund was $1.253 billion; this year it is $1.285 billion.
In this region, some sites have been on the EPA's National Priorities
List - those with the worst contamination - for a quarter of a century.
They are contaminated with radium, arsenic, heavy metals, volatile
organic compounds, and other substances.
In selecting sites, the EPA looked at those that could use the money
quickly, at those that offered opportunity for immediate short- and
long-term health and environmental benefits, and at other factors.
Among the eight sites being funded in New Jersey, about $25 million
will go toward cleaning up radiologically contaminated soil around the
former General Gas Mantle facility in Camden. The EPA said the cleanup
would help serve as a catalyst for redeveloping the area.
An additional $10 million to $25 million will be used to clean up
arsenic sediments at the site of the former Vineland Chemical Co.
Contamination remains in Vineland's Blackwater Branch, which drains
into the Maurice River.
Other sites to get money include Roebling Steel in Florence, near the
Delaware River; the Price Landfill, which straddles Pleasantville and
Egg Harbor Townships; and Emmell's Septic Landfill in Galloway Township.
Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, credited New
Jersey's legislators with being tenacious in getting funding. He said
it was "good we're getting money to finally finish some of these
projects."
But he said it was unfortunate that taxpayer money was being used.
Industry once funded the program through an excise tax on hazardous
chemicals and petroleum products, but the program lapsed in 1995 when
Congress did not renew it.
"This shows we need to bring back the Superfund tax," Tittel said.
Adam Garber, a PennEnvironment field organizer, agreed, saying a new tax could provide $1 billion a year.
"It shouldn't be the taxpayers' onus to clean this up," he said. "It's
time for Congress to follow through and reimplement the polluters-pay
tax."
In Pennsylvania, $5 million will be used to excavate contaminated soil
and put in additional groundwater-treatment wells at the Havertown site
of the former National Wood Preservers operation. The site is
contaminated with the wood preservative PCP.
With the funding, "all remedial actions will have been put in place,
but it will be a long time before the site is clean," said Jill Lowe,
the EPA's project manager for the site. "We will probably be pumping
and treating the groundwater for a lot of years."
Another $5 million will be used to start cleaning the groundwater at
the Crossley Farm in Hereford and Washington townships in Berks County.
Beginning in the late 1960s, an untold number of drums full of
chemicals were dumped there, and the site is contaminated with volatile
organic compounds.
Garber said that with more than 90 Pennsylvania sites on the priorities
list, "cleaning up two is really good, but we've got a long way to go.
We just need a lot more money."
