TOMS RIVER – A portion of a column of underground pollutants emanating from the former Ciba-Geigy Corp. Superfund site was cleaned, an official of BASF’s site owner said.
In statements to the Citizen Action Group on Childhood Cancer, Stephen K. Havllik, senior director of BASF’s remediation project, said the pen had been reduced through 24 years of pumping and remedying contaminated groundwater.
“Overall, the program is essentially where we expected,” Havlik said on Monday. “We will be there for many years to pump and treat groundwater. “
The German company BASF has owned the 1,200-acre property, along Highway 37, since 2009.
Ciba-Geigy, known as Toms River Chemical Co. , manufactured millions of pounds of commercial dyes and resins in its 1952 assets until all production operations ceased in 1996.
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The company first discharged wastewater from its production process at the closure of Toms River; In 1967, Ciba would nevertheless build a large pipeline that would sell the effluent to the ocean off Ortley Beach as part of an agreement to avoid court cases and lawsuits for the river spill.
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The pipeline was closed in 1991.
More than 10 billion gallons of contaminated groundwater were extracted from the soil, treated to remove contaminants and then recharged on land in the northeast corner of the property, according to the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA has overseen the cleanup of the Ciba site since the assets were placed on the federal Superfund list at 1nine82. Ciba is one of two Superfund sites in Toms River; the other is Reich Farm, located off Route Nine in the Pleasant Plains segment of the city.
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As groundwater cleaning continues, the former chemical plant will soon house New Jersey’s largest solar farm. Havlik shared images of the ongoing structure of the solar panels on the property.
Toms River Merchant Solar, a subsidiary of EDF Renewables, obtained approval from the Toms River Planning Board to build a solar farm capable of generating up to 35 megawatts of electricity on land that the company will lease for 40 years to BASF.
The solar farm is expected to involve between 90,000 and 92,000 solar panels and cover approximately 120 acres of the site. Havlik said spaces near solar panels will be planted with local species to attract pollinators such as bees and butterflies.
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Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, BASF also organized environmental education courses and rehabilitation visits for academics at Toms River’s 3 high schools, such as Manchester High School, Havlik said.
“They give a concept of what has happened over the years,” Havlik said of rehab visits.
“The reuse of this site is basically related to green energy and environmental education, that’s what we expect,” Havlik said.
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Ciba-Geigy, once Ocean County’s largest employer, would eventually become an infamous polluter.
Waste from the dye production procedure is poured into barrels in an un lined landfill on the ground and also poured into wells.
The plume of groundwater contaminants migrated from the former Ciba site as early as the 1960s, and has been particularly small in size, some of them still flowing below the nearby Oak Ridge neighborhood.
Contaminated water from public drinking water wells was leaked in the mid-1960s and some personal wells in the domain in the 1980s, according to local and local researchers.
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A state and federal study published in 2000 found that some residents of the Toms River were exposed to site chemical contaminants that leaked into personal wells and in the public drinking water formula decades ago.
The same examination made us think that the site no longer posed an environmental risk because the contaminated wells were sealed and groundwater remedy is in place. Approximately two hundred houses are located north of the assets and a few others 250 to the south. Dover Elementary School is adjacent to the site.
The study was conducted as part of a large federal and state survey of the highest levels of cancers of certain years in Toms River.
This research ended with the publication of a report in December 2001 that exposure to atmospheric emissions from the Ciba plant, as well as water exposure from the Parkway drill box, was related to the maximum degrees of leukemia in girls.
The Parkway field, now owned and operated through Suez Toms River Water Company, was infected through contaminants from Toms River’s other Superfund site, Reich Farm, off Highway 9.
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In 1992, two former Ciba and company executives pleaded guilty to illegally dumping pollutants in two landfills over the company’s assets and agreed to pay fines. All commercial operations at the site ceased in December 1996, the same year a groundwater repair operation began. There.
Most of the buildings that housed Ciba’s dyeing operations were razed. Expanding assets, larger than the city of Hoboken, are often empty, with the exception of on-site security; groundwater cleaning is basically automated.
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Toxic soil cleaning and removal of thousands of waste-filled drums were completed in 2010, and BASF completed the structure of a more effective groundwater remedy formula in 2013 and began operating in 2014.
Ciba has spent more than $300 million to treat groundwater and clean up poisonous waste on its property, and has spent millions more to solve 3 demands similar to the poisonous waste on its land and the contaminated groundwater it caused.
More than 40,000 waste cans were removed from the site and approximately 350,000 cubic meters of infected soil were treated, leaving some barrels in a landfill called that is monitored through the State Department of Environmental Protection.
The Cancer Group Committee, which met for the first time this year on Monday, was formed 24 years ago to read about the highest cancer rates in the training years here.
Havlik said BASF is currently pumping about 1. 2 million gallons of water a day, however, it can increase that amount to 1. 4 million or 1. 5 million gallons a day in the coming years and can move wells used to extract groundwater in the coming years. proconsistent conty, or install new ones, in an attempt to increase pollutant pen resources.
There are 27 groundwater extraction wells on the property, up from 43 when the water recovery procedure began more than two decades ago.
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Linda Gillick, who has chaired the group committee on formative years since its inception, asked Havlik how the EPA and the DEP oversee the site.
“Who’s looking at what’s going on there?” Gillick said. “It’s not that I don’t accept it as true with you. “
Havlik stated that the EPA is taking water samples at the assets as a component of a process; EPA takes a standard and tests it in its lab, while BASF does the same, so that the tests produce similar results.
The EPA also has to determine at any time the activities of the site, and the solarium installation has obtained approval from the agency.
BASF has a DEP AIR permit for emissions from its groundwater remedy formula and sends emissions knowledge to the state.
“Knowingly, the DEP is not there to take a sample of air,” Havlik said.
Jean Mikle covers the Toms River and several other cities in Ocean County, and has written about local government and politics on the Jersey Shore for nearly 36 years. She is also passionate about the coastal music scene. Contact her: @jeanmikle, 732-643-4050, jmikle@gannettnj. com.