Site near the Trenton-Robbinsville Airport
By: Mark
WASHINGTON – Recent meetings of the township’s Airport Subcommittee have led to questions regarding the status of a toxic site adjacent to the Trenton-Robbinsville Airport property on Sharon Road.
Deputy Mayor Vince Calcagno said during a recent Airport Subcommittee meeting the township wanted more information on the current cleanup procedures.
A check of New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection records revealed thousands of documents in the site’s case file.
According to the documents, a groundwater remediation program being conducted on the site was not producing satisfactory results. The pump filtration system kept on getting clogged with "free product," mostly xylenes in the ground.
Xylenes are harmful to humans and the environment, and are known for their possible effects on the human reproductive system, nervous system, and learning ability.
The DEP case manager, Steve Myers, declined to comment on the case, saying only that residents are not at risk as long as they don’t come in direct contact with the soil underground or drink the water under the site.
Mr. Calcagno said a new procedure now is being used to clean up the site, but did not know details. He said the responsibility to clean the site didn’t fall to the owners of the airport.
"Apparently, the methods that were being used prior to that weren’t really doing anything," Mr. Calcagno said. "I would hope that they are actually mitigating the site in its entirety."
The failure of the original groundwater treatment system prompted the DEP and the land’s owner, Miller Chemical, to agree to an alternate remediation process.
The new process, which began late last year, is called Electrochemical Geo-oxidation, or ECGO.
ECGO, an innovative product of 1990s German engineering, uses steel electrodes placed in the ground along with certain chemicals to break down toxic wastes in the ground.
Records from 1993 to 1999 show the soil to be contaminated with almost 20 different pesticides and at least a half-dozen volatile organic compounds in quantities that exceeded the DEP’s water quality criteria.
Almost all of the chemicals found in the ground are possibly cancer-causing, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
According to the DEP documents, Vahlsing Management Consultants owned the site and the airport property from an unknown date until 1968. The company blended pesticides together for crop dusting of surrounding agricultural properties.
The property was subdivided in November 1968 to form the airport property and the current toxic site, which was sold to Gabriel Chemicals, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Universal Container Corporation.
Gabriel continued mixing the pesticides until 1969.
Between 1970 and 1974, airport Hangars One and Two were built and the previously bare soil around them was paved over.
Miller Chemical obtained the land in 1978. It continued to mix pesticides, although it did so in powder form as opposed to the previous liquid blending.
Under Gabriel’s ownership, two fires occurred on the site. The worst, in 1969, is said to have destroyed the main pesticide-mixing building and three storage tanks.
A report to the DEP by The ERM Group, a consulting firm hired by Miller, states: "According to the local fire department, it took four days to bring the fire and attendant activities under control."
All site operations ceased in 1984, the same year the DEP began to keep watch on the site.
Between 1992 and 1993, almost 2,000 tons of pesticide-tainted soil were removed from the site, costing Miller almost $500,000. Miller requested that no further action be taken, but the DEP was not satisfied.
Groundwater was affected by the contamination, and, according to DEP records, at least three families on Sharon Road were told not to use their own water wells.
An extensive remediation program composed of about two dozen on- and off-site monitoring wells began in 1993.
Miller, incidentally, has denied responsibility for the contamination of the site, saying that its mixing processes did not involve the solvents that would be necessary for the toxins to move underground as they have so far.
"The pesticide-impacted soils on the airport property could not be the result of site operations during the time of Miller Chemical’s ownership," Miller stated in a 1995 report to the DEP.