Source: http://www.nj.com, August 20, 2016
By: MaryAnn Spoto
The owners of an Ocean County-based asphalt manufacturing plant have agreed to pay $10 million to settle a decades-old groundwater contamination case that affected more than 1,000 residents of a nearby development in Manchester.
The tentative agreement between the state Department of Environmental Protection and the owners and operators of the former South Brunswick Asphalt could potentially end a 14-year dispute over coal tar contamination detected nearly 30 years ago but suspected nearly half a century ago.
The proposed settlement addresses the contamination at the former Nicol site off Route 37 in Manchester where for decades a plant that manufactured asphalt used several chemicals that eventually polluted the potable water wells for Pine Lake Park residents.
When the chemicals were detected in the groundwater in 1987, Manchester eventually paid to have the more than 1,000 homes there hooked up to municipal water supply system. The township was eventually reimbursed by the state through the state’s Spill Compensation Fund.
Without admitting guilt, the former company representatives agreed to reimburse the Spill Compensation Fund $9.5 million and pay another $500,000 in damages for the groundwater contamination, according to the proposed settlement.
The chemicals found in the groundwater included benzene, styrene toluene, xylene, trichloroethane, trichloroethylene and dichloroethylene.
Inspections as far back as 1971 found No. 4 fuel oil sprayed on the asphalt trucks, leaking storage tanks and roads sprayed with oil to suppress dust, according to court documents.
In a 1983 site inspection, the DEP found 26 full or partially-filled 55-gallon steel drums containing waste oil and a 1,000-gallon above-ground tank containing No. 2 fuel oil, the documents said.
After working with company representatives since 1987 to try to clean up the site, the DEP filed a complaint against South Brunswick Asphalt and its partner Robert E. Johnson, Thomas Nicol Asphalt Co. Inc. and Thomas Nicol Co. Inc. in 2002.
Thomas Nicol Co. owned the 45-acre site since 1966. Thomas Nicol Asphalt manufactured asphalt products there between 1966 and 1981 and after that time, South Brunswick Asphalt leased the operation, according to court documents.
Davies Consultants Inc. bought the site in 2006.
The DEP is in the process of taking public comment on the proposed settlement, which would not be finalized until after that comment period ends 60 days after its publication in the New Jersey Register on Monday, said Larry Hajna, a spokesman for the environmental agency.