EPA proposes enhanced cleanup for Combe Fill South Landfill in NJ. Public hearing scheduled for August 22


The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today proposed a plan to address a newly identified contaminant and enhance treatment of contamination at the Combe Fill South Landfill site located in Chester Township in N.J., an inactive municipal landfill covering 65 acres. 

EPA’s proposal includes expanding and enhancing the existing groundwater treatment system that is currently operating at the site in addition to excavating and removing soil and solid waste materials, which are a contributing source of contamination.

“While considerable progress has been made in the cleanup of this site, our proposal takes us a step further by addressing a source of the contamination and allowing us to get at more contamination in the deep groundwater,” said EPA Regional Administrator Pete Lopez. 

Today’s plan targets the landfill’s impact on a deeper layer of groundwater that is contaminated with volatile organic compounds, including 1,4 dioxane. The current system extracts and treats mostly shallow groundwater directly under the landfill, along with a limited amount of deeper groundwater from the bedrock aquifer below the landfill. 

EPA is proposing improvements to this treatment system, including, the addition of deeper groundwater extraction wells to capture more contamination. In addition, EPA will make improvements to the plant in order to handle the additional groundwater and effectively treat 1,4-dioxane, a contaminant that has recently been detected at the site but not treated by the current groundwater treatment system. 

Further, EPA proposes to remove waste materials and soil from a small portion of the landfill that is contributing to the contamination of the deep groundwater. EPA’s cleanup proposal also includes, as an interim step, long-term monitoring of deep groundwater contamination in areas outside the Combe Fill South Landfill Superfund site. EPA will issue a final plan for groundwater contamination after further evaluation of whether the cleanup has been effective.

Background
The Combe Fill South Landfill, in Morris County, NJ, served as a municipal landfill from the 1940s until 1981. Soil and groundwater at the site were contaminated by volatile organic compounds from the landfill. Combe Fill Corporation went bankrupt in 1981 and the landfill was not properly closed. 

The original cleanup plan for the site included capping the landfill, installing a landfill gas collection system, pumping and treating the shallow groundwater beneath the site, and installing storm water runoff controls. By 1997, these actions were successfully completed. The system to treat shallow groundwater continues to operate at the site.

Starting in the early 1990s, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection began providing in-home water treatment systems to residents whose wells were potentially impacted by contamination coming from the landfill.

In 2015, EPA extended a water line to provide a permanent safe source of drinking water to 73 homes and businesses threatened by contaminated groundwater from the site. With the water line extension providing a permanent safe water supply to the neighborhood around the landfill, homes and local businesses no longer needed treatment systems.

EPA will hold a public meeting on August 22, 2018, to explain the cleanup proposal and other options considered and to take public comments. The meeting will be held at 7:00 p.m. at Chester Town Hall, located at 1 Parker Road, Chester, NJ. Comments will be accepted until September 11, 2018.

Written comments may be mailed or emailed to Pamela J. Baxter, Ph.D., CHMM, Remedial Project Manager, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 290 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10007 or e-mail: baxter.pamela@epa.gov.

To learn more about the cleanup or to review EPA’s proposed plan, please visit: http://www.epa.gov/region02/superfund/npl/combefillsouth

EPA proposes enhanced cleanup for Combe Fill South Landfill in NJ. Public hearing scheduled for August 22 Read More »

Bill providing funding for NJ land acquisitions signed


































Legislation (A4210) providing funds to the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to acquire land for New Jersey was signed into law today by Gov. Phil Murphy.

Under the new law, sponsored by Assembly members John Armato, Roy Freiman, and Mila Jasey, $15.294 million would be appropriated to the DEP with the goal of acquiring lands for the state for both recreational and conservational purposes, including for the Green Acres program and Blue Acres Project.


The Green Acres program was created in 1961 to meet New Jersey’s growing recreation and conservation needs, and through public-private partnerships, has protected over half a million acres of open space and provided hundreds of outdoor recreational facilities in New Jersey.

The Green Acres, Farmland, Blue Acres, and Historic Preservation Bond Act of 2007 authorized monies for the acquisition of lands in the floodways of the Delaware River, Passaic River or Raritan River, and their respective tributaries from willing sellers whose properties have been, or may be prone to, damage caused by storms or storm-related flooding.

The funding in this law is provided from constitutionally dedicated corporation business tax (CBT) revenues and provides that 60 percent of the dedicated CBT revenues allocated each year go towards the Green Acres program.




Of that 60 percent:

  • 55 percent would be used for state open space acquisition and development projects (27.5 percent for the acquisition and 27.5 percent for the development);
  • 38 percent would be used for grants and loans to fund local government open space acquisition and development projects; and
  • 7 percent would be used for grants to fund open space acquisition and development projects undertaken by qualifying tax-exempt nonprofit organizations.

Specifically, the law appropriates $12.3 million from the “Preserve New Jersey Green Acres Fund” and the unexpected balances in the Diesel Risk Mitigation Fund to the DEP to provide funding for the acquisition of lands by the state for recreation and conservation purposes, and $2.994 million from the “Preserve New Jersey Blue Acres Fund” and the unexpected balances in the Diesel Risk Mitigation Fund to the DEP to buy lands that have been, or may be prone to, damage from floods or storms.


Like this? Click to receive free updates

Bill providing funding for NJ land acquisitions signed Read More »

NJ lakes need to go on an low-phosphorous diet

James M. O’Neil reports for The Record:

New Jersey’s lakes are suffering from too much of a good thing.

Namely, nutrients.

Phosphorus — vital in limited quantities — leaches into lakes from septic systems. It pours in with storm water. It courses in from fertilized lawns and agricultural land. It’s introduced to the water from geese excrement, and from shoreline soil eroded by waves kicked up by boats.

And when there’s too much phosphorus, bad things happen to lakes.

“Phosphorus drives major productivity of algae and weeds,” said Steve Souza, founder of Princeton Hydro, a company that helps communities manage lakes. “You need enough nutrients to support a healthy lake, but too much leads to the demise in the overall ecology of those lake systems.

“Basically, our lakes need to go on a diet,” Souza said.

The state considers a lake to have too much phosphorus if it measures above .05 milligrams per liter. Of 245 lakes the state tested in recent years, a third exceeded that amount, said Jack Pflaumer, supervisor for water assessments with the Department of Environmental Protection.

The nutrient spurs the growth of invasive weeds such as milfoil, coontail, and water chestnut, which choke some lakes, hamper recreational activity, and therefore threaten property values. The weeds twist around boat propellers and the legs of swimmers.

“I have young kids and lord knows you’d think they were being attacked by monsters when they get tangled in the lake weeds,” said Jessica Murphy, president of the Lake Hopatcong Foundation.

Excess phosphorus also causes algae blooms, which reduce oxygen levels in lake water, posing a threat to fish and other aquatic life. A pound of phosphorus can generate 1,000 pounds of algae.

Most recently, nutrient overloads have caused lake closings because of cyanobacteria blooms, which release toxins into the water that are dangerous to pets and people.

“Pets go into the scum and it coats their fur, and dogs will lick it off. There have been numerous cases of dogs dying after being in intensely impacted waters,” Souza said.

In humans, the toxins can cause ear, throat and gastrointestinal infections.

But an array of lake community organizations, government agencies and university researchers are tackling the nutrient overloads in numerous ways.

At Lake Hopatcong, in Morris and Sussex counties, volunteers inspect boats before they are launched to keep bits of invasive plants out.

At Lake Mohawk in Sparta, the community requires residents to clean out and inspect their septic tanks every three years.

And several years ago the state legislature passed the nation’s most restrictive fertilizer law, limiting the use of phosphorus- and nitrogen-loaded fertilizer.



NJ lakes need to go on an low-phosphorous diet Read More »

Diesel buses stink. Are electric buses the solution for NJ ?

A soot-covered NJ Transit diesel bus travels north on the New Jersey Turnpike. Environmentalists want diesels replaced with electric buses to reduce pollution. (Larry Higgs | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
A soot-covered NJ Transit diesel bus travels north on the New Jersey Turnpike. Environmentalists want diesels replaced with electric buses to reduce pollution.
(Larry Higgs | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
Larry Higgs reports for NJ.com:
Diesel buses stink.
Drivers instinctively roll up the windows when they’re driving behind one and pedestrians hold their breath when a diesel bus passes by.
So why hasn’t NJ Transit made the switch to electric buses?
Environmentalists, who seek to clean the air to reduce respiratory diseases like asthma, want electric buses seriously considered as NJ Transit drafts a new plan to replace aging urban buses, starting in 2022.
Currently, NJ Transit has doesn’t have any electric buses in its fleet. New York’s MTA is testing 10 electric buses in Manhattan and Brooklyn and Queens.
“People who depend on transit to get around are exposed to diesel exhaust that’s causing respiratory problems,” said Amy Goldsmith, Clean Water Action state director. “New Jersey needs to institute a financial plan to replace dirty diesels.”
Environmentalists want electric buses used in cities such as Newark, Camden and Jersey City which they said have high rates of respiratory diseases caused by exhaust and particulate from diesel vehicles.
Northeastern states such as New Jersey can reduce pollution by cutting emissions from transportation, said a Natural Resources Defense Council report issued last month. Part of that strategy calls on transit agencies to replace diesel buses with electrics, especially in cities. Other ideas call for more transit use and replacing gas-powered cars with electrics.
Would electric buses really make a difference?
A 2016 Columbia University study of electric bus use by New York City’s MTA said air pollution generated by buses would be significantly reduced.
Electrics could prevent the generation of 486,068 metric tons of carbon dioxide that now spew out of MTA diesel bus tailpipes. Even when factoring in the 91,222 metric tons of CO2 produced by power plants that generate electricity to charge the buses, that’s still a big drop, the study said.
The nagging question is how to pay for them.
Electric buses cost about $300,000 more than the $450,000 to $750,000 price for a diesel, according to the Columbia study. Some of the cost can be recouped from money saved in fuel and reduced maintenance costs for electrics.
NJ Transit received a $500,000 federal grant for electric buses, said Nancy Snyder, an NJ Transit spokeswoman. But it’s not enough to buy one bus.
“NJ Transit has been investigating electric bus opportunities for a couple of years,” she said. “The agency has applied for funding grants to support an electric bus program, but was not awarded grants which would be sufficiently sized to begin a program.”

Diesel buses stink. Are electric buses the solution for NJ ? Read More »

PADEP says we’ll do better to cut Chesapeake pollution

Storm mess in Annapolis

Scott Dance reports for the Baltimore Sun: 

Pennsylvania officials on Tuesday conceded to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and other state leaders in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that the Commonwealth has not done its part to reduce pollution washing into waterways.

Patrick McDonnell, Pennsylvania’s secretary of environmental protection, said that will change as a target to restore Chesapeake ecosystems by 2025 approaches.
“We are committed and developing a plan that gets us to 2025,” he told the Chesapeake Executive Council, a group that oversees the federal Chesapeake Bay Program, at a meeting in Fells Point.
“We are clearly behind,” he said. “But we’ve taken that as an opportunity to double down.”
The promise came a week after Hogan publicly criticized Pennsylvania and New York for sending a deluge of debris and pollution down the Susquehanna River during recent flooding.
Hogan and McDonnell avoided trading barbs at the council’s annual meeting, which brings together the governors of the six bay watershed states, the mayor of Washington and Environmental Protection Agency officials. Both men said Tuesday’s meeting was productive, and that they hoped it would guide continued improvements in Chesapeake ecology.
“The fact that we have an open dialogue with our upstream neighbors is a positive first step,” Hogan said.
The Chesapeake has posted improving scores in recent years on report cards rating indicators such as underwater grass growth, dissolved oxygen levels and populations of rockfish and blue crabs. That progress has led environmentalists and scientists to declare that efforts of the state-federal bay program partnership are working.
But recently released data through the midpoint of a cleanup effort launched in 2010 show Pennsylvania is far from reaching goals for reducing nitrogen and sediment, and is also falling short of a goal for phosphorus reduction.
The data show Maryland and Virginia have missed goals in some areas, too — including targets to reduce the amount of nitrogen runoff coming from farms.

Like this? Click to receive free updates

PADEP says we’ll do better to cut Chesapeake pollution Read More »

News about a valued herb that no one’s smoking in NJ

The Department of Environmental Protection has high hopes for steps taken this year to improve the survival chances for New Jersey’s last remaining wild population of American chaffseed, a flowering perennial herb with highly specialized habitat needs. The species’ last stronghold is in a state forest in the Pinelands of Burlington County.

American chaffseed plant at Burlington County restoration site“Working with the help of volunteers, the DEP has implemented habitat management techniques that are showing signs of promise, giving this extremely rare and uniquely beautiful plant a chance at survival,” said Commissioner Catherine R. McCabe. “This effort demonstrates just how important it is to manage our wild lands to ensure continued ecological diversity.”

To restore the habitat at the Burlington County location, the New Jersey Forest Fire Service in late winter conducted a prescribed burn, then the New Jersey Forest Service thinned the surrounding trees to increase sunlight. Volunteers from the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and Pinelands Preservation Alliance also manually cut back competing shrubs. 

Duke Farms in Hillsborough also contributed by propagating at its site plants from seed collected at the wild population. The New Jersey State Forest Nursery in Jackson has been working to propagate plants to aid in re-establishing this rare species.

The project is being overseen by the DEP’s Office of Natural Lands Management. The Burlington County site has more than 80 American chaffseed plants.


“The results of our efforts have been very encouraging,” said New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry Director Olivia Glenn. “This year, the total number of American chaffseed flowers at the Burlington County site is double that of recent years, with the number of stems up 65 percent from last year. All of this points to an increase in the overall number of plants next year.”

Resembling a snapdragon, American chaffseed (Schwalbea americana) needs open meadows with sandy and acidic soil as well as nearby wetlands. Seeds of American chaffseed also require contact with the roots of a host plant to germinate. Known host plants in New Jersey include Maryland golden aster, inkberry and dwarf huckleberry.

The American chaffseed is listed as endangered by the state as well as the federal government. The biggest threats to American chaffseed across its range include development, mowing and suppression of wildfires that are needed to remove competing understory vegetation.

At one time, the species was found in 16 states from Massachusetts to Louisiana, and as far west as Kentucky and Tennessee. Today its range has diminished to spotty populations in eight states along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts.

“The species was once found at 18 locations in New Jersey, all in or near the Pinelands,” said Office of Natural Lands Management Administrator Bob Cartica. “The population of American chaffseed at its last refuge in Burlington County had been experiencing declines for more than a decade, its open-field habitat succumbing to other trees and shrubs that were outcompeting the American chaffseed.”

For more information on American chaffseed, visit

News about a valued herb that no one’s smoking in NJ Read More »