Significant damage and toxic releases at Superfund and other toxic sites throughout New Jersey directly after superstorm Sandy were not reported or disclosed to the general public.
One such massive publichealth threat was in Pompton Lakes. This area has a large chemical groundwater plume that is poisoning the air in over 450 homes.
During superstorm Sandy, there were two-week-long power outages, causing the mitigation systems installed in the homes, which are venting out the poison gases, to go down for the entire time. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (USEPA) response would have been laughable — merely advising people to open their windows — if it wasn’t for the fact that more than 450 families live in constant fear that these toxic gases are killing them. The poison gases have devastated property values with no end in sight and have been linked to possible cancer clusters.
The USEPA, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and other federal and state agencies must do better at planning and implementing solutions for the toxic inundation that New Jersey is subjected to from severe weather events.
The devastation that the Garden State’s toxic waste dumps cause is no less a disaster than superstorm Sandy or severe weather. For those affected, it does not matter if these disasters are manmade or caused by nature, because it does not change the impact to our New Jersey families.
Nobody has even spotlighted the fact that New Jersey has over 30,000 contaminated toxic waste sites, of which many still have not been assessed since the storm. No one has bothered to investigate whether these toxic sites are exposing our citizens and the environment to additional toxic threats.
This is especially critical due to the fact that New Jersey now has fully abdicated its responsibility to clean up these toxic nightmares to the polluters with no oversight.
In most cases, if not all, the polluters and those seeking to make money from redeveloping these toxic dumps are simply covering them with thin, plastic pool covers or a few inches of soil and declaring them “clean,” and then are putting schools, playgrounds and day care centers on these sites with little regard for the temporary nature of these cleanup solutions.
All these temporary controls will fail at some point. Emergency planning and response needs to include a robust inspection program of these 30,000 toxic waste sites by environmental scientists and engineers from the state and federal government. A full assessment is required on the damage to these sites by superstorm Sandy and the recent earthquake.
In Pompton Lakes, the polluter should be forced to pay for the installation of solar-powered systems for each and every home. Solar panels with backup batteries could provide a green energy source to run the toxic gas venting systems in each home if a power outage were to occur.
USEPA demanded these toxic gas systems be installed in hundreds of homes, stating that they were critical to the health and well-being of the citizens of that community, so they should take action to assure that they never power down.
Federal emergency agencies and New Jersey’s first responders must immediately prepare for future toxic disasters, especially in towns such as Pompton Lakes. Chemical manufacturers and those who polluted our state must pay the cost for this problem.
The Superfund “Polluter Pays” program must be reinstated so that the funds are available to address these toxic nightmares, especially since there are often no responsible parties left, as many of these companies are experts at reaping profits while limiting their liability.
Several toxic sites in central New Jersey were severely damaged by Sandy, and the extent of the damage and toxic releases is as much a disaster as any natural one. Global climate change and severe weather events will increase every season.
The toxic legacy in New Jersey must be taken as seriously as the hurricane’s damage to our shorelines. Our elected officials and regulators must take responsibly as they do with any natural disaster to protect the human health and environment from the endless number of toxic releases into our air, water and soil. Robert Spiegel Executive Director Edison Wetlands Association
Edison