Report: inaction delaying cleanup of hazardous waste

In a critical report, a federal inspector general faults the Environmental Protection Agency and New Jersey for delaying cleanups of sites that have sat on the Superfund list for more than 20 years.

The report chided both the EPA and the state Department of Environmental Protection for failing to prioritize cleanups and review key documents for months - and even more than a year in one case.

The agencies actually "caused unnecessary delays in cleanups" by their failure to act, the report said.

The report focused on New Jersey because it has the nation's highest number of Superfund sites that are at least 20 years old.

It listed seven sites, including a 350-acre former Hercules plant in Gibbstown, Gloucester County.

The site, along the Delaware River, was added to the Superfund list in 1983 because of contamination from benzene, phenols, heavy metals, and volatile organic compounds.

About 13,000 people live within a three-mile radius of the site. Clonmell Creek runs through it and discharges into the Delaware River.

The residents' municipal wells "may be threatened" if contamination in the aquifer were to migrate, an EPA document said.

Former DEP analyst Bill Wolfe, now director of New Jersey's Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the report validated criticisms he has made for years.

"The DEP is not using the legal tools it has," said Wolfe, whose group represents environmental professionals. "It is not enforcing the law."

He said the agency has "no priorities, no timetables and no enforcement philosophy, so of course the program drifts."

In a written response, the DEP's assistant commissioner Irene S. Kropp criticized the report for being selective by focusing only on sites where the state takes the lead, not the more numerous sites where the EPA is in charge.

Kropp outlined progress at the Hercules site, saying the DEP issued a "notice of deficiency" to Hercules last year and later found that sewers on the property may be an "ongoing source" for contamination. Hercules is replacing the sewers.

She also noted that the investigators "did not find any public health issues related to human exposures."

The department is seeking legislative approval to, among other things, license private consultants to do site investigations and "conduct remedial actions."

At a legislative hearing in April, DEP commissioner Lisa P. Jackson said the state had reached an unfortunate "milestone" - 20,000 contaminated sites currently in the queue at the DEP.

She said it was "far too many cases for the program to address in any reasonable time frame. And under the program's current structure, sites will remain unremediated for, perhaps, years."

Yet when the inspector general requested documentation to support claims of a "workload challenge," the agency "did not provide this information," the report said.

EPA regional administrator Alan J. Steinberg, also commenting in a statement, said the EPA agreed with the report's recommendations - one of which was for the EPA to take over for the DEP as the lead agency in dealing with the sites.

Wolfe praised the EPA response but said Kropp quibbled and defended, showing she should be replaced "with someone who can get the job done and stop making excuses."

The report was done at the request of the federal Office of Management and Budget, which wanted an evaluation of the Superfund backlog.

As of February 2007, not counting sites owned by the federal government, 144 sites had been on the list for more than 20 years.

The inspector general's office focused on New Jersey because it had 38 of those sites - or 28 percent, more than any other state.

Pennsylvania has eight such sites, including a wood treatment operation in Havertown, a solvent reclamation facility in Malvern, a metal recycling site on the Delaware River in Philadelphia, and the chemical disposal site, William Dick Lagoons, in West Caln Township, Chester County.

Joseph A. Feola, regional director of the DEP's southeast regional Office, said in an e-mail that the sites' significant groundwater contamination requires "lengthy remediation."

"You can't rush a process designed to ensure the highest standards of environmental protection," he said.

In its New Jersey report, the inspector general narrowed its scope to five sites in North Jersey, plus the Brick Township landfill in Ocean County and the Gibbstown site.

In one instance, the DEP took 15 months to respond to a supplemental remedial work plan submitted by Hercules.

Likewise, the EPA's regional office, which is required to review documents within 15 days, far exceeded this. For instance, it held Brick Township landfill documents 13 times longer than it should have, the report said, by the equivalent of 1,627 workdays.

Wolfe said delays only increase the cost of cleaning up the sites and could allow contaminants to migrate. "Delay is not just delay, it's a risk."

He complained that the DEP program "has been designed to be a voluntary program. Everything is subject to negotiation."

Looking at the files, he sees endless back-and-forth between the companies and the agency. "It will be like a ping-pong ball, every three months. Three and four years will go by without any work."