Source: http://www.nj.com, August 4, 2016
By: Rebecca Forand
The Environmental Protection Agency has expanded the area to be tested for possible lead contamination in the Birchly Court neighborhood with 28 properties on Woodlane Drive being added to the list.
Homeowners in the development, which was built in the 1990s, have found pieces of crushed car batteries in the soil around their houses. The batteries are believed to have been deposited by Mattea & Sons, a scrap metal and recycling facility nearby which previously owned the property Birchly Court currently sits on.
The black plastic pieces, heavily contaminated with lead, have been found in large quantities throughout the neighborhood and the EPA is testing the soil to see how far the contamination has spread.
“We are expanding the investigation to the rest of the neighborhood,” David Rosoff, the project’s on site coordinator, said. “That should take the next 10 weeks or so to complete, and then the agency will evaluate the whole data set.”
Two properties are already slated for excavation and remediation, which is scheduled to begin in the next two weeks and be completed in October.
The cost of each cleanup varies, Rosoff said, but the first one — which includes the two initial properties — is estimated to cost about $500,000.
The EPA will be paying for the cleanup out of the federal budget and then attempt to identify the entities responsible in order to recoup those costs, he added.