BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer
PHOTOSBYJEFF GRANIT staff Clockwise from top: TetraTech employee Jonathan Fox sets up a Data Ramm 400 that will detect elevated levels of dust in the air at the Laurelton Mobile Home Park last week. Toxic garden? Matt Giacalone, of environmental engineering firm Geo Trans, takes soil samples last Thursday. The soil will be tested for PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), a chemical compound suspected to cause cancer. This patch of gravel was once a pothole filled with material from the demolished Ford Motor Co. in Edison. Environmental officials believe the material to contain unsafe levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) and have ordered its removal. BRICK – Although the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) deemed it unnecessary, the township has taken water samples and is slated to take wipe samples from inside residents’ homes in the Laurelton Mobile Home Park.
The township moved into action last week, after park resident Bonnye Spino blasted Mayor Joseph C. Scarpelli at the April 18 Township Council meeting.
“I guess it pays to open your mouth and really get out of control in this town,” she said. “It’s the only thing that seems to work.”
Spino questioned Scarpelli on why he didn’t demand the DEP to take wipe samples from the walls within residents’ homes when the township’s environmental engineer, David Backman of Birdsall Engineering, made the recommendation in his report.
“Mayor, the DEP knocked down Birdsall’s proposal,” she said. “I’d like to know why you don’t feel everything in the report should be done. We’re living on top of poison.”
Scarpelli told Spino he was concerned for her and her community. Most of the park’s residents are senior citizens living on fixed incomes.
He said Birdsall has been at the site every day since TetraTech, the Rockaway firm hired by Ford Motor Co. to remove the crushed concrete believed to be laced with PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), began work last week.
The mobile home park’s owner, Jack Morris, of Edgewood Properties, used material he removed from Ford’s demolished Edison plant free of charge, to fill potholes throughout the mobile home park.
Residents say workers used the fill throughout the entire site.
Council President Anthony Matthews said he contacted Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority Chairman Patrick Bottazzi April 19 to request that the MUA test the water at the mobile home park.
Residents had been requesting water testing since they learned about the contaminated fill. Park residents say they experience constant water-pipe breaks and were fearful the contaminants had entered their water supply.
“The residents were unhappy with the response they were getting from the mayor’s office,” Matthews said. “So, I called Bottazzi.”
MUA employees took 11 water samples, Bottazzi said.
“We took 11 tests, one at the point of entry into the park and then picked 10 houses where we thought breaks in the pipes were,” he said.
The samples were shipped out to a Georgia lab, Bottazzi said, because the MUA is not certified to conduct the PCB testing.
Test results are expected some time this week, he said.
The MUA will absorb the costs of the tests, he said.
Scarpelli said Friday that he directed Birdsall to craft a proposal to take wipe samples in and outside the residents’ homes.
“We’re leaving no stone unturned,” he said. “I would give the go-ahead and tell the council I’m agreeable to [spending] $5,000 or $6,000 [on the testing]. That’s fine with me.”
On Monday, Spino said wipe samples have already been taken at five residents’ homes by Jeffrey C. Olcott, an environmental engineer the residents hired on their own.
Spino said she wants the residents to be reimbursed by the township for the money spent on the test, although Scarpelli said he never agreed to that arrangement.
Backman said Monday that Birdsall continues to petition the DEP to take the wipe samples from residents’ homes, but the agency “hasn’t given us a concrete answer.”
Cleanup continues at the mobile home park, Backman said.
A small pile of unused fill that had sat on the site since last summer has been completely removed from the roadway, and the contents are being tested, Backman said.
“The remainder of last week, [workers] ran around to any areas pointed out by residents or any areas that had visible signs of the … material,” he said. “That material was excavated out. Today workers initiated geoprobe samples throughout the entire roadway.”
The samples are being taken every 30 feet, he said.
Although Ford Motor Co. representative said the ground where a house was demolished on the site would not be tested, Backman said that information was wrong.
“That’s incorrect,” he said. “The DEP has actually requested Ford to do geoprobe sampling in pretty big chunks out there.”
The area of the structure’s former basement will be a focal point of testing, he said.
Although dust monitoring alarms have gone off several times, Backman said they were false alarms.
“The equipment is so very sensitive, even starting up of some heavy equipment out there can set off the meters,” he said. “When they’re actually doing the excavation, there haven’t been any exceedances. They’re careful every time they put a shovel in the ground.”
Although DEP mandated the site be remediated within 30 days of approving the cleanup plan, Backman said he doubts TetraTech will be finished by that date, May 6.
“The material is spread out over so much area,” he said. “They’re quickly running out of time.”