9/20-21/06 Calendar confusion; mercury si?non?; party-goers unite!
Photo: reviewing remediation files at New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
What's in a day?
At the planning board meeting on Sept. 12 we and the board were told in sworn testimony by Boswell engineering that on Sept. 8 the DEP had deemed the developer’s storm water permit application “Administratively Complete” (which means the DEP will start now reviewing the project and has 90 days to issue a decision), ironically, we were told by staff at the NJDEP the Administratively Compllete designation was made on Sept. 14 -- two days AFTER the meeing.
The planning board unanimously said yes (naturally) to the third extension requested by the developer on an application approved in 2002. See this week’s Independent Press’s article about the board attorney Michael Rubin's quick steps to squash an audience member's attempt to videotape the meeting. “You need permission from the council to videotape” Rubin commanded, a prohibition we puzzled over, and have since learned might not be on hmmm .. quite kosher?
Mercury si? non?
The BTRA’s Nick Joanow and Susan Hebert stopped by the DEP’s site remediation office in Cedar Knolls to review the stacks of files (see photo above) accumulated during the remediation process. Some curious things, though reems of test results and test specifications left us a bit numb.
A report filed in April by the developer’s engineer Environmental Waste Management states that in the northwest corner of the property in 1993 they found a “disposal area contained broken thermometers and broken laboratory glassware.” Test pits were dug. “Mercury was detected in five of the grid samples at concentrations ranging from 24.4 ppm to 70.7 ppm. Mercury was detected in one of the perimeter samples at a concentration of 19.9 ppm.” EWM also collected 3 samples on the southwest boundary in Sept. 1998. Tests found “a mercury concentration of 38.3 ppm.” Then the report says”Environmental Waste Management, based upon the sampling performed, remediated the soil impacted with metals via excavation and off site disposal. Excavation and disposal was completed in November 2000 and January and September of 2001…. 356 tons was taken to the Linden Landfill in New Jersey. The soil excavation in 2001 (1,122 tons) was transported to American Landfill in Waynesburg ,Ohio due to the VISIBLE presence of thermometer fragments.”
In fall of 2002, after our repeated warnings about mercury dumps on the site were ignored, Bob Spiegel of Edison Wetlands staged a gorilla event and showed how the site was littered with broken thermometers. Our efforts lead to a shutdown of the remediation as the search for mercury began. Now we learn that Leo/et al. knew all along about the mercury dumps and had tidyly taken care of it.
Join in the fest
Remember: our gala fundraiser sunset garden party is set for Sunday Oct. 22 from 4-7 p.m. at 96 Lakeview Terr. Suggested donation at the door is $10. Additional contributions always welcome. Because of the generosity of so many, we have been able to hire experts and advisors to help make sense of the issues at Liongate. With both the application in front of the DEP and anticipated additional Planning Board meetings, we still need to draw on experts to help.
Want to help pass out flyers? Or help organize? Have questions? Contact us at thirdriverbank@yahoo.com.
