Developer taking steps to remove contaminant Elevated levels of Dieldrin found at Adelphia Greens site

Staff Writer

By Kathy Baratta

Developer taking steps to remove contaminant
Elevated levels of
Dieldrin found at
Adelphia Greens site

HOWELL — According to a developer’s representative, voluntary testing of a township construction site yielded "higher than acceptable levels" of a banned pesticide and the builder is undertaking a voluntary remedial measure to clean the site.

Arthur P. Havighorst II, vice president and general counsel for the V.S. Hovnanian Group (Hovbilt), Freehold, confirmed to the News Transcript that the presence of the chemical Dieldrin was detected at the 56-acre construction site of Adelphia Greens, a townhouse development being built on former farmland on Wykoff Road and Route 524 in the Adelphia section of Howell.

Twenty acres of the site are in Freehold Township.

Havighorst said Dieldrin was banned for use in the late 1970s but before that was used statewide and nationwide. He said since most of the buildable land left in New Jersey is former farmland, there will be more instances of Dieldrin detection "popping up that will have to be dealt with."

He said that is why state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) administrators established new protocols for soil testing for new construction. It was in the wake of the new protocols that the testing at Adelphia Greens was done after construction of the buildings had already begun.

Havighorst said the DEP has set the acceptable level of Dieldrin at 42 parts per billion. The attorney said levels of between 40 and 80 parts per billion were found to be present in the top soil at the development site.

Havighorst said it was important to understand that the levels of Dieldrin found were not only considered to be not hazardous, they were detected only in the top soil and not in the sub-soil.

He said the top soil at the site had already been moved into berms around the property when the Dieldrin levels were detected. He said the developer’s remediation of the site will be to bring in new, clean fill dirt to mix with the contaminated top soil on-site.

Once that is done, according to Havighorst, the mixed top soil will be moved off-site and new, clean top soil will be delivered and used for the completion of the Adelphia Greens site.

"By the time we are done, everything will be just fine," he said.

According to a letter received by the builder from the DEP, a copy of which was also sent to the Monmouth County Health Department, the agency affirms that Hovbilt is complying with all set protocols for this type of contamination.

Hovbilt sent a letter on June 13 to township engineer William Nunziato informing him of the test findings and their plans for remediation of the site.

The DEP Web site terms Dieldrin to be an "estrogen-like" chemical "strongly linked" to breast cancer.

DEP spokeswoman Loretta O’Donnell confirmed that Hovbilt volunteered the Dieldrin findings as well as the remediation of the site.

Said O’Donnell, "they even took it upon themselves to send letters to prospective buyers informing them of the situation and what was being done about it."

In letters to the prospective buyers, Hovnanian states that "…Hovbilt will also take all further steps that are necessary to obtain a ‘no further action’ letter from the DEP."

O’Donnell said Dieldrin contamination could only happen through ingestion.

"You would actually have to eat the dirt," she said.