Finding the Bottom of a Polluted Field - NJ chromium - how much remediation prior to new growth - redevelopment via brownfield laws

[Guest guest]

" ...there also is a broader question at stake, one that old industrial

cities across the country have grappled with: Must every last bit of

contamination be removed, at great expense, before land can be reused?

Or can pollution just be covered over so blighted neighborhoods can be

redeveloped more quickly? Most cities and states, including New York

and New Jersey, have adopted what are called brownfield laws, which

allow certain types of pollution to be left in place and capped.

Developers, protected from future liability by these laws, have opened

up vast stretches of urban wasteland to new construction.

For their part, environmentalists say they have a " preference for

permanence, " meaning that they would rather see pollution completely

removed, especially if housing is going to be built there. "

* * * *

February 5, 2006

Finding the Bottom of a Polluted Field

By ANTHONY DePALMA

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/nyregion/05chromium.html

[foto] Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times - A pilot excavation site in

Jersey City that exposes chromium residue; Honeywell Corporation is

responsible for cleaning up the site.

[foto] Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times - An area examined for chromium

residues.

JERSEY CITY -- Just past the old municipal incinerator, near the car

lots, strip malls and fast-food joints heaped on this city's far west

side, a long fence juts into the shoulder of busy Route 440. Most

drivers whiz by without knowing that on the other side of the fence lies

one of the nation's biggest hazardous waste sites, one that spurred an

environmental battle so contentious that it has dragged on for a generation.

The forlorn stretch of fallow land -- an area the size of 34 football

fields -- is a casualty of Jersey City's industrial past, poisoned by a

half-century's worth of residues from the processing of chromium, the

versatile substance used in paints, stainless steel and automobile

bumpers. In its most dangerous form -- called hexavalent chromium -- the

wastes can cause cancer and other health problems.

No one is allowed on the site now, but before the dangers of chromium

were known, the Roosevelt Drive-In operated here, and later there was a

Valley Fair department store. Built on top of the crumbly gray, green

and yellow cinders of the chromium slag -- more than 25 feet deep in

spots -- the buildings had to be abandoned long ago because the ground

beneath them buckled and heaved so badly that they broke apart.

If ever there was unloved land, this was it, and for years the city was

willing to just let it lie there. But Jersey City's recent revival as a

less expensive alternative to Manhattan has brought town house

developments practically up to the edge of the chromium field. City

officials are impatient for the site to be cleaned up, redeveloped, and

put back on the tax rolls.

But there also is a broader question at stake, one that old industrial

cities across the country have grappled with: Must every last bit of

contamination be removed, at great expense, before land can be reused?

Or can pollution just be covered over so blighted neighborhoods can be

redeveloped more quickly?

Most cities and states, including New York and New Jersey, have adopted

what are called brownfield laws, which allow certain types of pollution

to be left in place and capped. Developers, protected from future

liability by these laws, have opened up vast stretches of urban

wasteland to new construction.

For their part, environmentalists say they have a " preference for

permanence, " meaning that they would rather see pollution completely

removed, especially if housing is going to be built there.

The cleanup question is particularly important in Jersey City, which for

years was one of the world's biggest processors of chromium ore.

Millions of tons of residue from three plants were used to fill in

wetlands and construction sites all over the city and in nearby towns.

Besides forming the former drive-in's foundation, the hazardous material

lies beneath stores, houses, schools, even the municipal incinerator.

Honeywell Corporation, the high-tech giant with headquarters in

town, is responsible for the drive-in site even though it never

produced chromium in Jersey City. In 1954, its corporate predecessor,

Allied Signal, bought the stock of the Mutual Chemical Company -- which

operated one of the world's largest chromium processing plants on land

across Route 440 from the drive-in.

For every pound of chromium ore Mutual processed, it created two pounds

of slag, which it just dumped on the banks of the Hackensack River,

eventually creating a chromium waste field covering more than 30 acres.

The slag also became fill in other parts of Jersey City.

Honeywell has cleaned some of the smaller sites, but until recently it

was slow to do anything about the former drive-in, in part because it

insists that capping is appropriate. Honeywell argues that chromium's

main danger is through inhalation, and capping with clean fill

eliminates the chance of any chromium dust becoming airborne. However,

some scientists also believe that ingesting chromium-contaminated water

could be dangerous if it somehow leaked into weakened underground water

pipes.

Honeywell probably would have capped the drive-in site and moved on long

ago had it not been for a coalition of residents, church groups and

environmental advocates who thought capping was inadequate, especially

if the land was to be used for housing. They sued in 1995 under the

federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to force the company to

haul off everything.

" I very much believe in economic development, but I want it done in a

way that's safe, " said the Rev. Willard , pastor of the Abundant

Joy Community Church in Jersey City and a co-chairman of the Interfaith

Community Organization, the group that sued Honeywell. Mr. says

that allowing developers to cap a site, build housing on it, and then

take off -- what environmentalists call " pave and wave " -- does not

solve problems; it just postpones them. He wants all the hazardous waste

removed.

Nothing has changed Honeywell's position that capping would take care of

the contamination and the instability problem, not even a landmark

federal court decision in the Interfaith case in 2003. In the ruling,

the judge found that the way the chromium wastes heaved made capping

impossible, because any cap would eventually be breached, exposing the

contamination. The only way to make the site safe for redevelopment, the

judge ruled, was to get rid of all one and a half million tons of the

wastes, an undertaking expected to cost more than over $400 million.

Honeywell estimates that there are 110,000 truckloads of the yellow

chromium wastes in the ground. It would take four years to haul it all

to a licensed disposal site in Grand View, Idaho.

Honeywell appealed, arguing that the court should not have taken the

case because the company had already reached an agreement with the New

Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. But the appeals court

determined that the state agency was incapable of dealing with

" Honeywell and its tactics, " and upheld the earlier court's finding.

Late last year, Honeywell was back in court, asking the judge to modify

his removal order because the circumstances of the case had

substantially changed.

For one thing, Honeywell, which had always accepted legal responsibility

for the pollution, never owned the site of the former drive-in. But in

an attempt to gain legal leverage, in 2004 it bought most of the land

from its previous owner, W. R. Grace, which had planned to build housing

there and had insisted that the chromium be removed. As the new owner,

Honeywell has no specific plans to develop the land, but is willing to

let it be capped.

More important, Honeywell claimed in the court filing that it had

finally figured out why chromium residues at the drive-in buckle. It

said groundwater caused some of the chromium wastes to bond together,

forming a hard layer that pushes upward, causing the surface to heave.

In unlocking the secret of heaving, the company said it had to remove

only the hardened layer, which is about 10 feet below the surface. Then

what is left would be encapsulated, preventing groundwater from

entering, and covered with 7 to 12 feet of clean fill. Honeywell says

developers could then build stores, offices or high-rise housing on the

land.

L. , vice president and general counsel of Honeywell,

said that since the federal judge had found that heaving made capping

impossible, solving the issue had fundamentally changed the

circumstances of the case. Complete removal was no longer necessary, the

company argued. Capping would cut the time needed to prepare the site

for development to a little more than two years -- half the time needed

for complete removal -- and cut costs by $100 million.

" I want to be clear about this, " Ms. said. " One hundred million

dollars is a factor. But legally, our obligation, and we take it

seriously, is to implement a remedy that is protective of human health

and environment. But we're not obligated to implement more than that. "

Armed with the new scientific explanation for heaving, Honeywell got a

nationally recognized expert who had testified against the company in

the first trial, Dr. Kirk W. Brown, to review the plan and design a

multilayered cap.

The Interfaith Community Organization, which is connected to the

Industrial Areas Foundation, a national grassroots organization, took

exception to Dr. Brown's testimony, arguing that he had switched sides.

The group also objected when Honeywell hired two lawyers who had been

aligned with the organization in the earlier proceedings. The

organization also had doubts about Honeywell's new capping plan.

Joe , an organizer, said he worried that if Honeywell was allowed

to cap the drive-in site, the owners of several other large chromium

sites in Jersey City would do the same thing. " This ought to be the last

generation that cleans up the industrial legacy of New Jersey, " Mr.

said.

On Jan. 3, federal Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh disqualified Dr. Brown and

the two Honeywell lawyers. He ordered the company to move forward with

the full excavation, scheduled to begin on April 3. The company has

appealed the disqualifications.

But any delay pushes Honeywell closer to the point where it will have

spent so much time and money preparing for full excavation that capping

it no longer makes sense. Honeywell has already spent more than $60

million on the cleanup. Two huge boring machines have pounded in nearly

1,000 steel beams for a huge retaining wall to encapsulate the

contamination.

The former drive-in is not the company's only chromium problem. Last

year, the state of New Jersey sued Honeywell and two other corporations

to force them to clean up more than 100 chromium sites in Jersey City

and surrounding towns. And the company was sued earlier this month by

the Hackensack River Riverkeeper, Sheehan, and several Jersey

City residents.

They say that chromium-contaminated properties near the drive-in that

were capped and developed years ago -- including the Home Depot store on

the Route 440 site of the Mutual Chemical Company chromium processing

plant -- continue to pollute groundwater, which eventually makes its way

to the Hackensack River.

" Protecting public health and the environment also means making sure

that chromium does not get into fish, crabs or the human food chain, "

Mr. Sheehan said. " I take exception to the idea that they think they

shouldn't be expected to also clean up these sites to a gold standard. "

* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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