Residents used a public meeting Thursday night to criticize a plan to remove a layer of contaminated soil from the Passaic River and place a cap over the rest, saying it doesn’t do enough to address decades of pollution and the constant threat of tainted water flooding homes in extreme weather.
“I want to be able to have my child walk in my yard,” Craig Sedlock told representatives of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency at the Lyndhurst Senior Center. “They have no solution. How do you clean up toxins that have been deposited since the Vietnam era?”
Federal environmental officials scheduled the meeting to gather input from residents on the $20 million project to remove dioxin-laced mud from in the Passaic River bottom near Riverside County Park.
The plan calls for dredging 20,000 cubic yards of tainted mud – enough to fill 1,500 dump trucks – between July 1 and Aug. 22. Barges will carry the mud downriver, navigating a series of 17 low-lying bridges, to a processing facility in either Kearny or Elizabeth, where the water will be removed, mixed with cement and then deposited in a yet-to-be-determined land fill.
Once the dredging is complete, a barrier cap capable of weathering serious storms will be laid over the remaining contaminated mud. A silt screen will be erected around the dredging site to prevent the mud from migrating to other areas during the project.
One of the most polluted waterways in the nation, the Passaic River has been designated a federal Superfund site for 17 miles, from the Dundee Dam, which spans Garfield and Clifton, to Newark Bay.
For decades, the only large amount of dioxin – a highly toxic industrial chemical and a known carscinogen – was next to the former Diamond Alkali plant in Newark, where the Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange was manufactured and dioxin was discharged.
In late 2011, however, tests revealed that high levels of dioxin had been found at the surface of the riverbed, and high levels of mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, in the mudflats close to the riverbed. Tests of Riverside County Park, which flooded during Hurricane Irene, found levels of dioxin that were not high enough to threaten human health.
Some residents and environmental advocates want the entire 5.6-acre mudflat, located in a bend of the river referred to as “Mile 10.9,” removed. However, the EPA decided to remove only the top 2 feet of mud and cap the rest.
The EPA is overseeing the cleanup with funding provided by the Lower Passaic Cooperating Parties, a group of 70 companies that either have polluted the river or inherited the liability for past polluters.
Representatives of the Lower Passaic Cooperating Parties said the work will be conducted with minimal impact on the community. All the work will be performed in the river, and no materials will be staged in Riverside County Park, they said.
“Our success will be dedicated to a very good process,” said Stan Kaczmarek, a project coordinator for the companies. “We’re going to try to get out as fast as we can.”
But that offered little reassurance to residents, many of whom said flooding has washed the chemicals out of the river and into their houses. Many called for walls to be built along the river.
“Getting rid of 3 feet” of material and replacing it with a cap “doesn’t really do anything for us,” said Geraldine Paneggiante of Lyndhurst. “Something has to be done on another level. It’s like we don’t exist.”
Stephanie Vaughn, an EPA project manager, said the plan for the area in front of Riverside County Park isn’t a final solution, and a broader proposal for mitigating contaminants in the river would be prepared in the next two to three years.
Officials said the dredging operation shouldn’t cause disturbing odors for area residents and that air quality will be monitored throughout the project.
“There really isn’t an exposure issue,” Kaczmarek said.