By PETER HALL THE MORNING CALL
The Lehigh County Authority suspended a permit last year allowing a New Jersey plastics manufacturer to dispose of industrial waste in one of its treatment plants after a two-state investigation identified the plant as the source of a likely cancer-causing chemical that turned up in New Jersey drinking water.
New Jersey American Water Co. detected an industrial solvent called 1,4-Dioxane in samples of Delaware River water near its plant that produces water for four South Jersey counties in February 2020. Working with the New Jersey and Pennsylvania departments of environmental protection and the Delaware River Basin Commission, it determined the chemical was entering the Delaware River from the Lehigh River, a company official said.
Testing of waste being hauled to LCA’s industrial pretreatment works in Upper Macungie Township identified 1,4-Dioxane in a tanker load from West Deptford, New Jersey, plastics company Coim USA as a major contributor, according to a letter LCA sent to the company in June when it suspended the permit. Coim was required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to send waste containing 1,4-Dioxane to an incinerator in New York, according to Politico.com, which first reported on the hunt for the source of the chemical Sunday.
Cancer-causing substance in NJ drinking water traced to PA waste treatment plant (Politico)
CEO Liesel Gross said although the permit suspension was temporary, LCA has no intention of reinstating the permit.
“Our understanding was that it was an isolated incident but I have no way of being able to verify that,” Gross said.
Coim USA’s president did not return a phone call Monday but told Politico that the shipment of waste containing 1,4-Dioxane was mistakenly sent to LCA as the result of a one-time error. Coim USA is the American subsidiary of an Italian plastics and polymer manufacturer and first received a permit to dispose of waste at the LCA plant in 2018, Gross said. Regulators have not taken formal action in response to the release.
