Marlboro - $24.3M and still toxic -- APP.COM -

This is alarming...

$24.3M and still toxic

Published in the Asbury Park Press 11/22/04

SPECIAL REPORT: This is the second part of a three-day series on the Superfund program, examining eight Superfund sites in Monmouth and Ocean counties and cleanup plans that are in most cases not getting the job done despite millions of dollars spent over more than two decades.

By JAMES A. QUIRK
and TODD B. BATES
STAFF WRITERS

MARLBORO -- More than 50 years ago, workers at the chemical refining facility now known as Imperial Oil began to discharge toxic waste oil and other contaminants into the environs at the 15-acre site, creating an ecological horror that poisoned soil and water miles away from the plant.

Today, after 20 years of cleanup work and roughly $24.3 million earmarked or spent, a large amount of that contamination still remains -- directly und Imperial Oil's biggest customer: the U.S. Department of Defense, which has given the company millions of dollars in contracts over the past decade for its oil-blending work.

Since few devices are in place to contain the toxic pollution, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classifies the groundwater contamination at Imperial Oil as not under human control. A 3-foot layer of viscous "free product" -- waste oil -- still floats like a huge lens atop the water table beneath the site.

"They've got to get that under control," said Jessie Arlt, 72, a 44-year Marlboro resident who lives a mile away from Imperial Oil. "There is more and more building going on, and you don't know how that contamination is going to affect people."

The Imperial Oil site is one of four Superfund waste sites in Monmouth and Ocean counties where ground water polluted with toxic chemicals is not under control, even though it's been more than 20 years since the waste was found at the sites. Making matters worse, the EPA's Superfund program has a backlog of sites awaiting cleanup because of a shortfall in federal funding. Read More.....



APP.COM - $24.3M and still toxic