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The Record, Hackenstack, NJ, 11-17-2002
TOM DAVIS
MAYWOOD - The state Department of Environmental Protection has told the federal government it opposes parts of a plan to clean up thorium-tainted soil at the Maywood Superfund site by 2008.
"NJDEP is concerned about the effectiveness of the soil treatment technologies that are currently available," Donna L. Gaffigan, a case manager for the department, wrote in an Oct. 8 letter to the Army Corps of Engineers.
The corps wants to use high-tech machinery to sift through the soil at the former Maywood Chemical site and extract the contaminants, which would then be sent out of state. The remaing soil would be kept in Bergen County. Until now, the corps has been shipping all of the tainted soil to a disposal facility in Utah.
The plan requires approval from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and DEP has been adivisng the corps on the cleanup.
Among its objections, the DEP says the Army corps is not recognizing state standards for chemical levels in the soil.
Allen Roos, a project administrator for the Army corps, said his agency and the DEP have "agreed to disagree." The corps does not recognize the state's standards, he said, because they were never made into law.
"If the state's standards were law, then we would be required, under [Superfund rules], to analyze and determine whether they were applicable or relevant and appropriate for use on the site," Roos said, noting that the corps hopes to determine what course to take by the end of next year.
Gaffigan's letter was among hundreds sent to the corps during a three-month public comment period, which ended Monday. The corps has collected a 2-inch-thick stack of letters and e-mails from lawyers, engineers, environmental activists, politicians, and average citizens.
Rep. Steve Rothman, D-Fair Lawn, also opposes the corps' plan. In an Oct. 2 letter, Rothman said he supported sending all of the soil to Utah or Colorado for permanent disposal, which would cost $254 million. The Army corps estimates the treatment proposal would cost about $244 million.
If the plan is put into effect, the Maywood Chemical property could be the site of the "segmented gate" system in which contaminated materials would be extracted from soil at 24 sites in Maywood, Rochelle Park, and Lodi, using machinery that is supposed to measure the soil's radioactivity and chemical levels, and automatically separate the portions exceeding cleanup standards.
Those contaminated materials would be shipped west. Earlier this year, the corps chose the Cotter Corp. uranium mill in Colorado as a disposal site.
However, Colorado health officials rejected Cotter's plans to bring 470,000 tons of radioactive earth from Maywood, saying last month that the company wasn't ready for the shipments. Indeed, many of the people who provided written comments during the corps' public comment period were from Colorado, and they all opposed bringing the tainted soil to their state.
"Enough is enough!" wrote David and Karen Bachman of Canon City, which is near the mill site. "Contrary to what Cotter says, we, the residents of Canon City/ Fremont County, do not need more toxic waste brought in to be near us."
Maywood residents wrote letters and e-mails, too. A group called the Concerned Citizens of Maywood submitted a petition with 78 signatures opposing the new plan. The petition had a simple message at the top: "Up and out!"
Tom Davis' e-mail address is davist@northjersey.com