By Ron Leir
Observer Correspondent
A proposed bank-to-bank cleanup and cap is no way to treat a river. That’s the reaction by a private corporate group that has agreed to pay for work to remediate a portion of the contaminated Passaic River.
The CPG, isn’t prepared to accept a $1.78 billion U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plan to remove 4.3 million cubic yards of sediment from the lower Passaic, from Newark Bay to the Newark/Belleville border.
The CPG, more than 60 companies who’ve accepted the collective responsibility of funding remediation of industrial toxins that compromised the river, have filed an 87-page response to the EPA plan slamming it from every conceivable angle.
CPG’s response, filed Aug. 20 – the deadline set by EPA for submitting commentary on its plan – was prepared by the global corporate law firm K&L Gates, with offices in Newark and elsewhere. According to its website, the law firm offers “global boardroom risk solutions” to “such areas as corporate governance, anticorruption, competition, antitrust and regulatory, insurance coverage, workplace safety, environment, product liability, cyber risk and data privacy, among others ….”
The same group recently concluded a dredge/cap operation, removing more than 16,000 cubic yards of toxins from a 5-acre section of Lyndhurst mudflats along the banks of the river.
In its response, the CPG makes these points:
The EPA plan for the Passaic is misguided and “inconsistent with” the goals set by the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation & Liability Act of 1980.
The EPA plan is “legally indefensible and must be withdrawn.”
The EPA plan “is scientifically and technically unsound based upon the current understanding of the river ….”
Despite EPA’s assertions that its plan would be the largest cleanup in the agency’s history and that the sediment collected would “fill MetLife Stadium, twice over,” the CPG insists it won’t do the job intended and will be a waste of money.
The CPG contends that EPA “misrepresented the conditions of the river sediments and the effectiveness of the remedial alternatives that were evaluated,” and that it “has made a series of incorrect and scientifically unsupportable assumptions and interpretations that demonstrate a clear preconceived bias for a bankto- bank remedy … despite the fact that there are now legions of data, collected over the last seven years, demonstrating that the disruption and cost of a bank-to-bank remedy are not needed to protect human health and the environment.”
Since 2007, the CPG says it “has spent more than $100 million” on a remedial investigation feasibility study with oversight by EPA” but the CPG says EPA’s actions have only “increased the likelihood of expensive and time-consuming litigation” by all parties involved.
The CPG contends that the EPA’s plan relies on a bank-to-bank strategy, keyed to “massive sediment removal,” that will only lead to “recontamination,” that the EPA’s assessment of ecological risks in the river were based on creation of “a fake generic fish that does not exist and is not representative of the life histories of the fish population that does inhabit the river,” and that it “failed to consider … the enormous logistical nightmares [from] many thousands of bridge openings with resulting traffic congestion and rail transportation delays.”
In the end, implementing the EPA plan will leave the river in no better condition for “being fishable or swimmable,” the CPG asserted.
“Selecting a massive dredging remedy … is inconsistent with adaptive management and precludes the requisite flexibility and adjustment during remedy selection,” it said.
The CPG says its plan – still evolving – will work better by “targeting specific areas” for cleanup without needlessly disrupting other areas “not contributing to [sediment-related] risk” and with “less disruption to the community,” all at a quicker pace and for less money.
EPA spokesman David Kluesner declined to respond to CPG’s allegations. He said the agency is reviewing “over 200” public comments sent to the EPA, along with comments from three public meetings. Some “will require additional research,” he added. Asked when EPA would publish a final plan, Kluesner said: “We don’t have a time frame on that.”
