All three incidents are related, in that they involve contaminants that seeped into the ground at production sites over significant periods of time — sometimes decades.

Experts say the city may be paying the price for a lack of oversight from the state and federal government, despite legal action by those governments beginning in the 1970s to reduce environmental problems.

“As far as whether (they are) doing enough and have enough staff, I’m sure the answer is ‘no,’” said Michael Gochfeld, professor emeritus of environmental and occupational medicine at Rutgers University’s School of Public Health.

The latest issue here involves the remnants of arsenic-based pesticides manufactured by the former Kil-Tone Company in early in the 20th century.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is testing to determine how far the materials spread from the company’s former plant in the 500 block of Chestnut Avenue. The company sold the property in the 1940s.

Recent tests on residential properties near the site showed elevated lead and arsenic levels in surface soils, according to the EPA.

Those samplings ended last month, and information from the EPA about what they revealed was not immediately available.

Some residents living around 6th and Paul streets near the former Kil-Tone site said they know about the problem.

Salvadore Roman said he has seen EPA officials in the neighborhood taking soil samples. When asked if he was concerned about contamination, he replied, “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know enough to make a decision,” he said.

Resident Leo Calixto said he has been notified by the EPA about the pollution problem. He said the EPA has helped keep residents calm, adding he believes the agency will do the right thing to clean up the problem.

Calixto said he doesn’t think the lead and arsenic levels at his property pose that much of a threat.

“Only if you roll around in it,” he said, referring to the ground.

The agency also conducted sediment, flood plain and surface-water sampling along the Tarklin Branch, which leads to the Maurice River. EPA officials are concerned that the hazardous materials may not only have reached the river, but also made it as far south as Union Lake in Millville.

Officials with Citizens United for the Protection of the Maurice River and its Tributaries contend the materials may have already reached the river, which is part of the federally designated National Wild and Scenic River System.

“Once it’s in the tributaries, it’s likely in the river,” said Jane Morton Galetto, Citizens United president. “There is concern.”

Galetto said her organization has contacted the EPA in an effort to monitor what the results show.

The Maurice River has taken some environmental beatings over the past decades, she said, including pollutants from the former Vineland Chemical Co.

The federal government spent about $125 million beginning in 2009 to stop the flow of arsenic from the Vineland Chemical site into the nearby Blackwater Branch, which drains into the Maurice River. The last phase of the work alone involved excavating almost 90,000 tons of arsenic-laced peat from the Blackwater Branch.

“The fact of the matter is that our rivers have been used as waste receptacles over the centuries,” Galetto said.

Last year, city officials started asking the EPA to include cleanup of the contaminated Burnt Mill Pond here in a $5.3 million Superfund project at the site of the former Shieldalloy Metallurgical Corp. in Newfield, Gloucester County.

The company produced various metals and alloys on its 67-acre site for decades before closing in 2006. The EPA found that Shieldalloy caused groundwater contamination through the release of processed wastewater.

City officials charge that contamination from the now-shuttered site made its way into Burnt Mill Pond. They contend that sediment from the pond site contains levels of chromium, copper, manganese, mercury and nickel that far exceed state standards.

City leaders said they face the possible loss of the pond and the recreation area — into which the state Department of Environmental Protection pumped Green Acres funding to make the site accessible to the public.

The latest statement from the EPA indicates it continues to clean up the Shieldalloy site, but makes no mention of making Burnt Mill Pond part of the project.

City Solicitor Richard Tonetta did not respond to a request from The Press of Atlantic City for comment regarding the Shieldalloy and Kil-Tone sites.

In 2013, opposition from city government helped thwart a plan by the Spanish company Tradebe Environmental Services to operate a hazardous-waste treatment plant in one of the municipality’s industrial parks.

The location was the site of the former Pure Earth Inc. company, which abandoned the property in February 2011. The EPA began a process in 2012 that led to the removal of more than 500 drums of chemical waste, more than 260,000 gallons of waste oil, more than 112,000 gallons of contaminated soil leachate, and almost 20,000 gallons of oil-water sludge from the site.

Federal agencies spent more than $1 million to clean up the site.

City officials charged that the runoff from the site leached into the soil and possibly into the groundwater and tributaries of the Maurice River. They didn’t want another hazardous-waste facility operating on the site.