The Roebling mill is not a Superfund priority site for the EPA this year, but may receive alternate funding.
By: Scott Morgan
FLORENCE The federal Environmental Protection Agency’s list of priority Superfund sites for its 2003-04 fiscal year does not include the Roebling Steel Mill. But despite the temporary cutoff, funding still may be available for the 200-acre site.
According to Bonnie Bellow, a regional spokeswoman for the EPA, the agency’s $277 million Superfund budget for the coming year does not include first-level funding for the steel mill. Rather, she said, Roebling looks to be the beneficiary of "deobligated" money.
Deobligated money, Ms. Bellow explained, refers to funds left over from one project that can pay for another. In other words, if the agency earmarks $2 million dollars for a site that ultimately uses only $1 million, the remaining million can be rerouted to a different project, she said.
According to a July 17 statement, the EPA manages more than 460 toxic sites across the country, 11 of which are receiving cleanup funds for the first time this year. The Roebling plant is considered an ongoing operation.
Ms. Bellow said recent public concern over the fact that the site’s cleanup crew has not returned since breaking for the winter was unnecessary.
"Crews just don’t disappear, they work for us," she said. "Demolition (to the mill’s contaminated buildings) at the site … was paused for the winter."
The reason the crews have not returned, she said, is because the Roebling mill requires different types of remediation. The Roebling site has, or has had, contamination in the soil, water, storage tanks and buildings, each of which, Ms. Bellows said, requires individualized cleanup plans.
"This is obviously a deviation from how EPA has funded ongoing remediation in the past," Mayor Michael Muchowski said. "Obviously we’re going to continue to press for continued funding."
Mayor Muchowski said EPA has opened a broader dialogue with the township in order to complete the work at Roebling. Such dialogue coupled with the fact that years of work are actually starting to show signs of light at the end of the cleanup tunnel offer encouragement, he said.
"The site is at the point where it’s now becoming desirable," the mayor said. What is needed to see things through, he said, is consistency.
Ms. Bellow said Roebling could see renewed funding when the EPA announces its next year’s budget after Oct. 1.
The John A. Roebling Steel Co. manufactured steel and wire products at the the Delaware Avenue mill until the plant closed in the early 1980s. The site was added to the EPA’s list of Superfund sites in 1983.
Originally, the EPA projected that total remediation would require $38.8 million. So far, $19 million has been spent on the site.
Ms. Bellow said the final cost probably will come in less than $38 million and that the price tag changes as each stage of work is completed.