Deputy Mayor Kabili Tayari responds to a question.
25% Cleanup by Summer 2012, Finish by 2014
JERSEY CITY, N.J., Nov. 8, 2011 – Officials responsible for the cleanup of chromium contamination at sites along Garfield Avenue told audience members at a Nov. 1 public meeting that excavation will resume in January and the project is on track to meet the 2014 goal for completion.
In his presentation to approximately 30 at the Mary McLeod Bethune Life Center, Mike McCabe, the independent, court-appointed site administrator for PPG Industries’ chromium cleanups, said the company has dug up and hauled away nearly 73,000 tons of chrome-impacted material, or approximately 10 percent of the total.
PPG expects to be 25 percent complete by midyear next year and 100 percent complete by the end of 2014.
In preparation for renewed excavation, PPG is installing a system that will decontaminate water on site, eliminating the need to truck it to a treatment facility. Instead, clean water will be piped to a local sewer in accordance with permits, enabling the company to remove contaminated material at a greater rate.
In addition, the company is conducting limited digging in Carteret Avenue to determine the exact location of buried utilities because in many cases maps are incomplete. Later this month, PPG plans to drive steel sheets into the ground to manage the excavation and contain groundwater.
McCabe said PPG’s site managers quickly responded to reports of contaminated water in areas neighboring cleanup sites as a result of record rainfall in the region. Under the direction of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, precautionary cleanups were conducted and test results later confirmed the presence of contamination. Nearby residents were inspected and no evidence of chrome contamination was found.
Ben Delisle of the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency provided an update on the status of the proposed Berry Lane Park. He said an environmental investigation determined chrome contamination was limited to the area of the former Morris Canal. A cleanup plan is under development and Delisle said he hopes to begin cleanup work next summer.
Meanwhile, Brian McPeak, site administrator/project manager, reported that no chrome waste has been found at any residential property inspected under the Residential Inspection Program, which enables residents living near PPG chromium cleanup sites to request testing their homes if they suspect chromium waste is in or on their property. Of the 62 inspection requests eligible under the program’s guidelines, record searches indicated there was no history of chromium waste on any of the properties. Follow-up physical site inspections requested by property owners and soil samples didn’t turn up any chrome waste either.
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