Greg Forester, Packet Group
MONTGOMERY Township officials have drafted a letter of concern to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection regarding the 3M Belle Mead plant, following this week’s discovery of the existence of hundreds of thousands of pounds of potentially toxic metals stored on the Sourland Mountain site.
Documents from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Toxic Release Inventory show the plant has been producing thousands of pounds of waste containing potentially toxic metals like chromium, manganese, lead, zinc and cobalt, with most of the waste materials being deposited on site.
Now Montgomery officials want to know the status of these waste materials in 3M’s plan to address them as the company prepares to sell the operation and leave the site.
”Ultimately the township will do whatever it takes to ensure there are no long-term threats to health or public safety to Montgomery and the surrounding environment,” said Montgomery Mayor Cecilia Birge. “Obviously the current conditions are unacceptable, but it could become far worse under certain circumstances.”
Following the discovery of the presence of the metals 150,000 pounds worth from 1999 to 2005 alone, according to Mayor Birge Montgomery officials drafted the letter to the DEP expressing their concerns about the site and questions about its remediation going forward.
Working with the 3M company on the Belle Mead plant’s environmental issues is nothing new for Montgomery, but previous problems were of a more aesthetic nature, Montgomery officials said.
Those problems arose because of another byproduct of the plant’s activities: rock-dust, known as material fines, left over from the blasting process and stored in a massive 60-acre pile located on the company’s property.
In recent years, the township has worked with the company to address water pollution from the plant, caused by runoff containing the fines entering nearby waterways and turning streams a milky-white color.
But the revelation of the existence of potentially toxic metals has Montgomery officials even more concerned about the site.
”We have been told all along that the biggest concern of the site was the fines pile and the environmental concerns it was causing in our waterways,” said Mayor Birge. “Those problems were more aesthetic than anything else, but this recent report demonstrates potential for health risks.”
3M Plant Manager Keith Jacobs could not be reached for comment.
While the 3M company announced its intention to vacate the plant earlier this year either selling the site and associated industrial activities to another company or closing the plant altogether the company still says it will address its impacts on the surrounding environment.
Earlier plans for controlling runoff from the fines pile included depositing them in the quarry where rock for roofing material is extracted, but that plan could be jeopardized if officials’ suspicions are correct and the metals are deposited in the fines pile.
The thousands of pounds of waste products 3M has deposited on the site are byproducts from different facets of the roofing-granule production process, according to DEP officials.
”The lead comes mainly from the rocks used in the process, and the other metals are used in the organic pigments used to color the roofing tiles,” said DEP spokesman Larry Hanja. “When they process the rock for the roofing tiles they color it and smash it, and there is some spillage, and leftover rocks of the wrong size for their usage.”
DEP officials said the metals listed in the reports would probably be bound to the rocks they were used to color, most of which is deposited on the site, which straddles Montgomery and Hillsborough.
Although they didn’t know specifically where the metals were stored on site, DEP officials said the waste would probably be deposited within the 60-acre material fines pile.
The documents from the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory show the company deposited nearly 215,000 pounds of the waste materials on the site between 1987 and 2005, although the plant has been operation since the 1950s.
