Efforts to Clean Up the “Carteret Landfill District”

In the 1970s, a series of federal and state laws were instituted to stop the pollution to land, air and water. The unlined sludge impoundments were shut down, the old landfill next door stopped accepting waste, and open discharges to the River were curtailed. Regionally, many industrial plants closed and moved away leaving these abandoned waste areas to deteriorate where they continued to be rained on and leach contaminants into the River. Over time, this created an unsafe condition, but no one was willing or able to develop solutions for the many environmental problems.

 

In the 1990s, a new political resolve emerged in Carteret, one that sought to clean up the district, remove the dangers, and put the land back to productive use. Getting people to pay attention was difficult, but progress was made. Governor Whitman was brought to the site, and redevelopment plans were encouraged. The Mayor and Council actively reached out to the landowners and regulators to encourage the cleanup and restoration of the entire district in a phased approach.

In the first phase, the old landfill upstream from the old Cyanamid property was capped, habitat areas were established and ultimately scores of jobs were created remediating the landfill, building warehousing and restoring habitat areas.

Unfortunately, the second phase, encompassing the adjoining American Cyanamid sludge impoundments, presented problems that no one was able to fix. The unconsolidated sludge is like toothpaste when saturated. Over and over again, potential developers were brought in to stabilize and remediate the site, but the developers were not willing to spend the millions needed to investigate and engineer plans to fix it, and government funds were not available. Developers signed on, then backed out. The Borough of Carteret's efforts to rehabilitate this property may be viewed here.

As described in documents above, several plans to fill and cap the site with amended dredge spoils from the New York Harbor was considered, and DEP was somewhat supportive as the action would provide cover and cap the exposed sludge "bathtubs". However, permitting obstacles, acceptable dredge supply, and geotechnical issues ultimately discouraged and terminated their efforts.

In the end, the previous landowners simply put up a fence, and the site was left vacant. Some trespassing and illegal dumping occurred on and around the site, and discarded wastes floated up during high tides and storms. In a few locations, river water overtopped the berms during severe storms; an occurrence which is strongly discouraged for any uncovered waste impoundment.

 

Every two years, maintenance was done to the roadways and berms holding the sludge back, but overall conditions continued to deteriorate. Efforts to cap the site were abandoned. It was only a matter of time before something would go wrong. This was unacceptable to the residents and elected officials in Carteret.

In 2006, after the NFA was issued, the USEPA tasked NJDEP to perform a Site Reassessment report. The sludge filled impoundments had been there for more than 70 years, and Federal regulators wanted confirmation that the site was not "hazardous" as defined by federal law, and to know whether it needed to be cleaned up under Superfund. The groundwater was contaminated and waters from the impoundments continued to discharge into the River, but it was not found to be hazardous, and was deemed to be "clean enough" to leave as is with the requisite engineering and institutional controls. The Report included a comprehensive history and describes the conditions at the site based on available information at the time.