Posted on 11/02/2009 7:11:23 PM PST by Coleus
Ford Motor Co. will haul out piles of arsenic-laced soil found in Ringwood State Park, ending a four-year battle over the source of the waste. The company failed to prove the cancer-causing element was a naturally occurring remnant of mining in the remote mountain in Ringwood, rather than a byproduct of the paint sludge it dumped decades ago. As a result, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is demanding Ford remove the contamination as part of its Superfund cleanup.
Plastic tarps now cover several hockey-rink size swaths of the toxic-laden soil. Federal officials say the arsenic isn’t leaching and has not tainted the nearby Wanaque Reservoir, which serves more than two million state residents. Since the discovery of the arsenic in January 2006, Ford has denied it came from liquid paint sludge dumped 40 years ago in the Upper Ringwood neighborhood and what is now state parkland nearby. Instead, the company said the toxins were from tailings, the remnants of iron ore mining done nearly a century ago.
Extensive testing by Ford didn’t support its hypothesis, however, so EPA Project Manager Joseph Gowers said the company likely will remove the soil by next month, at a cost of about $1 million. “Ford didn’t conclusively prove that sludge did not cause the arsenic,” Gowers said Monday. “So they will be taking it out. They want to get it done before the dead of winter, probably by the middle of November.”
Gowers said EPA and Ford are still working out details of the work plan and once that is done, removal will begin immediately. Ford spokesman Jon Holt said the company had no comment. Vivian Milligan, a community leader who lives just up a small hill from the plastic-covered soil, is taking a wait-and-see attitude.
“We’ve been waiting so long for them to get this out of here,” Milligan said. “Let’s see what actually happens and if it is all taken out.” The auto giant is in the midst of a second Superfund cleanup of the 500-plus acres it used as a dump site, with the EPA again overseeing the efforts. The contamination — sludge, solvents and other industrial waste — was so expansive, it is the only site in the country to be put back on the nation’s Superfund list after a failed initial cleanup.
The section of the park where the contamination was discovered was closed in 2004, when Ford started its latest cleanup. Residents of the Upper Ringwood community, many of whom belong to the state-recognized Rampough Mountain Indian tribe, suffer a number of illnesses and blame them on the contamination. No link has been proven between the sicknesses and the waste; residents recently settled a lawsuit with Ford and several other companies for $10 million and are fine-tuning an agreement with Ringwood over the dumping. The suits are not related to the cleanup.
Ford will not say how much money has been spent on the cleanup and the government does not require financial statements, but Gowers said about two years ago contractors were reporting $20 million to $25 million already spent. At that time, 24,000 tons of waste had been trucked off the site. To date, 35,000 tons have been removed.
Rich Chapin, an engineer hired on behalf of the residents by the environmental group, Edison Wetlands Association, said Monday “Ford did every extensive, very sophisticated [soil] tests that had to be half-a-million dollars. What they found is that once arsenic gets into the tailings, it stays there. Not so with the sludge.”
Chapin concluded that because arsenic leaches out of paint sludge, the soil contamination must have come from the industrial waste and so Ford is responsible for removing it.
The soil had arsenic levels at twice the state safety level, 20 parts per million. But tests on sludge done by The Record for its 2005 “Toxic Legacy” series — which chronicled Ford’s dumping, cleanup efforts, and the toll on the community — showed arsenic levels much higher: at 145 parts per million and 171 ppm. “It’s great news that this stuff is finally being removed,” said Robert Spiegel, EWA director. “This is a significant victory for the community, and they haven’t had one in a while.”
Exactly how much of the arsenic-laced soil will be trucked out of state can not be determined until excavation work reveals how deep and widespread the arsenic is, Gowers said. So far, it is in three separate areas, all located at the end of Peters Mine Road. Where it will be taken also was unclear at this time. The most toxic contamination from the rest of the area was trucked to Michigan, the remainder to Pennsylvania.
“Where it is going is one of the questions Ford needs to answer in the work plan,” Gowers said.
That’ll teach ‘em to refuse federal money and then post a billion dollar profit!!!.......
That’ll teach ‘em for not taking a Federal bail out!
Deep pocket rule prevails.
Well, it’s a shovel ready project.
No doubt Ford and other companies have all kinds of *buried secrets* that could be shameful.
Although these chemicals were likely dumped under the auspices of management, it was probably union members that actually did the dumping.
Make the unions clean it up.
Ford will do it, and survive.
Retribution to Ford for being the only non-government owned American car company left.
(Yes I know this has probably been in the courts for awhile. But Obaminions are running EPA now and they were still liberal under Bush.)
Ford will do it, and survive. >>>
sure they will, they are a corporation and not a person. They started polluting this area in 1967 and it’s now 2009. People get old and die and corporations remain. Ford might be here for another thousand years.
Was it prohibited in 1967?
Over the years have read so many stories about toxic cleanup, trucking the toxic soil away. In this case out of state.
Where? If the soil is so damned toxic where it is, then where are they going to put it where it isn’t going to be toxic?
Just a thought.
Well, I guess we’ll just have to nationalize them.
Right, Mr. President?
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