Published in the Asbury Park Press
By JEAN MIKLE
TOMS RIVER BUREAU
TOMS RIVER -- Drilling of 10 new monitoring wells is scheduled to start at the Dover Township landfill next month, but a member of the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster again asked last night that a well be added on the northeast side of Kettle Creek.
At the monthly meeting of the citizens committee, township Committeeman George E. Wittmann Jr. said field workers from the state Department of Environmental Protection will visit the landfill site today to verify the locations for the 10 new wells.
There are six existing monitoring wells at and near the landfill property, located between Bay Avenue and Church Road. The new wells are being added to determine the former dump's effect on ground water.
Once the new wells are drilled, ground water will be sampled between April and November, with a report of the results prepared by December. Results of the report are expected to be available to the public by early next year, Wittmann said.
The sampling will search for a wide range of contaminants, including styrene acrylonitrile trimer, a chemical compound related to plastics production that has been found in United Water Toms River's well field near the Garden State Parkway.
The chemical compound is believed to have migrated into the well field from the Reich Farm Superfund site, where drums of Union Carbide Corp.'s chemical waste were dumped in the early 1970s. Trucker Nicholas Fernicola, who hauled the drums to Reich Farm and dumped them, has also said he dumped about 2,000 drums of Union Carbide's waste at the landfill.
Citizens committee member Kevin Root again asked that a monitoring well be added on the northeast side of Kettle Creek because preliminary testing shows groundwater contaminant levels to be high in that area.
Tests completed in August by Dover's consultant, Dan Raviv Associates Inc., showed chlorobenzene levels of 97.9 parts per billion and benzene levels of 7 parts per billion in a hydro-punched boring drilled in a wooded area northeast of the landfill property.
The boring was made near the south branch of Kettle Creek.
The state standard for benzene in drinking water is 1 part per billion, while the standard for chlorobenzene is 50 parts per billion.
Root has repeatedly said that common sense dictates that a well be placed northeast of the creek, but DEP officials have said the well will instead be put on the creek's southwest side.
"The locations were what was approved by the DEP and our consultant," Wittmann said to Root. "I'm not going to debate this with you."
Root and other citizens committee members remembered Raviv and Associates telling the committee that ground water flows in a northeasterly direction away from the landfill. But the actual report prepared by the consultant said water flows in an easterly direction from the 33-acre landfill site.
Citizens committee Chairwoman Linda L. Gillick again asked DEP officials and hydrologists to meet with Root and explain why they do not think a monitoring well is needed northeast of the creek.
Citizens committee member Kim Pascarella said Root is asking a legitimate question that should be answered.
"It is the purpose of this committee to question what is being done," Pascarella said. ". . . The community deserves some answers as to why it's being done in a certain way."
Source: Asbury Park Press
Published:March 09, 1999
|
