Outcry over N.J. plans to privatize hazardous-waste cleanups

With more Superfund sites than any state in the country and more than 16,000 hazardous-waste cleanups pending, New Jersey's industrial landscape has long made it a punch line of pollution jokes.

But now that state environmental officials are trying to trim the backlog by handing control to the private sector, they are facing a backlash from both the state's environmentalists and its industrial and chemical companies.

Under plans still being reviewed, state-licensed environmental professionals will be granted day-to-day autonomy, relegating state bureaucrats to the role of auditors on the majority of cases.

Environmental activists fear that leaving more of the cleanup to the private sector will lower standards and increase the risk to public health.

"The system we had was broken. There wasn't enough oversight or enforcement," said New Jersey Sierra Club president Jeff Tittel. "But the question becomes: Now, will there be any oversight? We're heading in a really scary direction."

Groups representing oil, chemical, and pharmaceutical companies are lobbying to reduce what they describe as a still-untenable degree of bureaucracy within the system.

The overhaul is modeled after a system introduced in Massachusetts in 1994, which is garnering increased interest around the country as state budgets shrink and politicians begin to question the cost of managing years-long environmental cleanups.

In New Jersey, cuts to the Department of Environmental Protection's budget - 13 percent since 2009 - have left it unable to continue in its role as case manager for hazardous-waste sites, said Deputy Commissioner David Sweeney.

"Right now, we approve every step of the remediation process, and because of our limited resources, the process has been held up," he said. "What we're creating here is a sustainable cleanup system."

With the more than 1,000 pages of rules and regulations that accompany the changes under review through next spring, protest is coming not just from environmentalists, but also from polluters.

"It's too cumbersome. It still makes the responsible parties do just as much, if not more, than they had to do before," said Hal Bozarth, executive director of the Chemistry Council of New Jersey, which represents chemical and pharmaceutical companies. "From what we've heard, the consultants are going to be charging costs between 20 [percent] and 30 percent more than what they were before."

Polluters, whether a chemical company or a homeowner with a leaky oil tank, are responsible for the cost of cleanups, except when the cause of the pollution is uncertain. Then the state or federal government picks up the tab.

The private-sector model has proved successful in Massachusetts, where contaminated sites that sat for years awaiting cleanup approvals have been cleaned up and removed from the state rolls, said Sylvia Broude, organizing director for Toxics Action Center, an advocacy group with offices across New England.

"I think most tend to agree the overhaul here was a major improvement," Broude said. "The state still oversees the cleanups, but they're not doing the day-to-day process. And the good thing about that is that in times like this, with the current economy, there are just not enough state resources."

The challenge is bigger in New Jersey. While Massachusetts ranks 16th in the country in Superfund sites, with 36, New Jersey, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has 144.

For New Jersey's almost nine million residents, the long wait in getting abandoned chemical manufacturers, gas stations, dry cleaners, and other contamination sites cleaned up has been a source of frustration.

In Pennsauken, residents have been fighting for years to get abandoned industrial sites along the Delaware River and on Petty's Island up to code to attract developers.

"You just wait and wait. I tell people: You can't just sit there, you have to be the squeaky wheel," said Betsy McBride, a founder of a local environmental group who is now running for township commissioner. "I understand nobody wants to be responsible for the cleanup, and things get bogged down in litigation. But they also get bogged down in regulation."

New Jersey environmental officials have defended the overhaul, contending it not only would speed up the cleanup timeline through strict deadlines, but also would allow the agency's reduced staff to focus on the worst contamination cases.

"I don't think the cleanup process really changes very much. The person deciding how many wells to test or soil samples to take is the same," Sweeney said. "Most of the cases are things like a spill at a gas station. I'd rather spend my time on the cases that are recalcitrant and leave the routine cases to" private consultants.

Some environmentalists remain skeptical of the degree of oversight state officials will maintain over a cleanup industry that so far has operated under strict state management.

Sweeney acknowledged that as the new system was phased in, state officials would not be reviewing every document. As consultants come on board, he said, the proportion scrutinized would go down "to a statistically valid number."

Tittel foresees a future where contaminated sites that now require a full excavation will simply be paved over, as consultants take short cuts to please their industrial clients.

In Massachusetts, there have been instances in the 17 years since the changes went into effect where cleanup consultants have not followed state regulations and have been forced to go back and fix their work, Broude said.

But that problem existed prior to privatization, she said. "Those cases will always happen."