EPA Curtis Specialty Superfund – Is The Priority Site Cleanup or Redevelopment?

Superfund Is Designed to Protect Human Health and The Environment

EPA Cleanup Allowing Local Interests to Place Too Much Focus on Redevelopment and Local Property Tax Ratables

I wandered up the Delaware River to Milford NJ on a rainy Monday night for an EPA update on the progress of Superfund cleanup of the former Curtis Specialty Papers industrial site.

This site is located on the banks of the Delaware, a Congressionally designated “Wild and Scenic River” and adjacent to one of NJ’s most heavily used State Parks, the nationally recognized D&R Canal State Park. It is environmentally sensitive, to put it mildly.

Right now, the site is a huge regional eyesore for those living, bicycling, driving, or walking along the river.

PCB’s and other toxic contaminants from the site may be migrating off-site and into the river.

The EPA did a good job in presenting fairly detailed reports on various aspects of the cleanup – site characterization and long awaited building demolition are underway.

So, let’s keep it simple and just say that my comments tonight to EPA on how to strengthen the cleanup approach curiously generated far too much resistance from certain local politicians, who seemed more concerned with redevelopment issues and local property tax ratables, than they were in protecting public health and the environment.

It seems that EPA is deferring to these local interests in certain aspects of the site cleanup. Let me explain:

During the course of tonight’s meeting, several residents and local officials spoke up to  downplay the risks from the site. They did so in a way that consistently praised and protected the interests  of the corporate RP’s (International Paper and Georgia-Pacific).

Of course, I didn’t quite see things this way and spoke up to make my point clear.

Several times, it got heated and local political hacks attacked me personally – one man, repeatedly. If he weren’t so old and fat, I might have just kicked his ass on the spot!

Unfortunately, many of the 23 local residents who attended the meeting seemed to agree with a priority focus on redevelopment and tax ratables. The local line: “That plant used to provide 40% of our tax base.  If you keep focusing on cleanup issues, we won’t be able to redevelop and get a new ratable in there”

Some even went so far as to request that EPA use the cleanup process to improve their own private property, upstream of the site!

CAG members repeatedly objected to my reasonable recommendations, even minor and basic stuff that would not cost taxpayers a dime, like asking for:

• installation of fences and warning signs to limit site access to kids;
• revegetation of the former industrial wastewater impoundment area along the river that was excavated and now looks like a huge ugly scar along the river;
• providing an opportunity for the public to comment on important EPA regulatory agreements before they are finalized, like the historical resources MOA and the draft remedial work plan documents;
• clearly attributing the localized PCB contamination to the corporate responsible parties (there were a host of excuses claiming that other sources were the problem);
• I opposed costly,  unnecessary, and unauthorized EPA actions that are solely designed to maximize the redevelopment of the site, things like like preserving building slabs, foundations, and surveying elevations to anticipate NJ DEP flood hazard and redevelopment permit restrictions (all this focus on redevelopment, while ignoring the fundamental issue of cleanup standards for the site, which ultimately will determine the site’s reuse potential).

Why would local residents oppose any of that?

So, let’s tell this disappointing story from the beginning.

My primary objective in attending this meeting was to impress upon EPA the need to immediately stabilize the stream bank (see above photo).

But I also planned to take EPA to task for putting the cart before the horse and generating totally unrealistic expectations among local residents and officials.

Specifically, EPA generated unrealistic expectations by releasing a July 2010 site reuse report, instead of focusing on far more important cleanup concerns, like stabilizing the stream bank, stoping ongoing toxic releases to the Delaware River, and  demolishing old industrial eyesores.

I criticized EPA and wrote about that in this February 1, 2012 post, which focused on the stream bank.

But aside from the stream bank, even the EPA reuse report dodged the most important issue, which is: what cleanup standards will EPA require?

Will EPA mandate that the cleanup meet more stringent, more costly, and protective residential standards, or lax low cost industrial standards?

The choice of cleanup standards and extent of cleanup (i.e. a) residential cleanup standards and permeant removal or b) industrial standards and a cap) will determine the future use of the site.

That decision will reveal whether EPA finds that the public health and environment are more important than real estate redevelopment and local tax ratables.

And I’ll be damned – tonight I learned that EPA and contractors met in January on that same emergency stream bank stabilization issue I raised in my February 1 post!

Of course, the Wolfenotes Feb. 1 post played absolutely no role in any EPA reconsideration of priorities at the site -which happened in January!

But I’m being petty – surely it was a pure coincidence that –  after years of ignoring the problem and a focus on a site reuse Report – EPA finally decided to make stream bank stabilization the a pressing issue.

The meeting broke down at the end as I objected to the constant ad hominem attacks, so I will have to report in future on when the next meeting is.

[Update: 5/15 – I sent EPA a note just now to remind them that the EPA’s own CAG Guidelines prohibit ad hominem attacks – because the CAG is an EPA creation and they sponsor and manage the meetings, I expect EPA to enforce those common sense restrictions.