By Brenda Flanagan, NJ Spotlight
What lies beneath this cement cap along the riverfront in Newark’s Ironbound makes it one of America’s most toxic Superfund sites in the country. The Diamond Alkali chemical plant manufactured Agent Orange, used as a defoliant during the Vietnam War, and it poisoned the site with dioxin — a cancer-causing byproduct so toxic, the EPA sent workers in hazmat moon-suits to vacuum the streets back in the early 1980s.
Residents still remember that, and more than 40 years later during a public hearing this week on the site’s future, they were still asking the EPA about its plans.
“What’s the plan to keep the community safe? In the past, the community got screwed,” complained one Ironbound resident named Sharon. “They were sitting outside watching people in hazmat suits cleaning up.”
Speaking at the hearing, Eugenia Naranjo, the EPA’s project manager, said the waste is “not migrating.”
“The community has no access,” she said. “There are no risks from it.”
EPA officials said that for 37 years, the agency contained the toxic chemicals on-site — locked up within underground slurry walls. The agency contends that remains the best, most cost-effective option to safely secure the site for years to come.
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