PCB-tainted concrete removal slated to begin

BY JAY BODAS
Staff Writer

The removal of approximately 100,000 tons of concrete fill from the demolished Ford plant on Route 1 in Edison is under way, a Ford official said recently.

"We are bringing equipment onto the site to get it ready," said Ford Motor Co. spokesman Jon Holt last week. "We started mobilizing equipment on Wednesday, and the crushing will start next week. All of the material will be going to landfills."

Ford representatives discussed the cleanup plans with the public at an Aug. 15 informational session at the Pines Manor.

"We sent letters to people within 200 feet of the property line, put an ad in [a local paper], and sent letters to people who showed up at the last open house," Holt said. "We also notified the township. One of our requirements was to have a public meeting to answer questions, and we had about 15 neighbors show up."

Mayor Jun Choi said after the meeting the township's health department was "satisfied" with the process so far.

"We had our health official at the site every day overseeing the cleanup efforts, and our officials, along with Middlesex County health officials, have been monitoring the cleanup, and they will continue their daily observation," Choi said.

The site contains concrete fill that tested positive for elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

PCBs are a mixture of up to 209 individual man-made compounds that stopped being produced in the United States in 1977 due to concerns over

their health effects and their tendency to remain in the

environment, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Health effects due to exposure to PCBs include acne-like skin conditions in adults and neurobehavioral and immunological changes in children.

PCBs have also been found to cause cancer in laboratory animals, and are "probably carcinogenic" to humans, according to the federal Environmental Protection Agency .

Some of the recycled concrete aggregate material was trucked to 11 development sites for re-use in Middlesex, Mercer and Ocean counties, after the plant's demolition.

Ford has said that the health risk to site workers and the public is minimal, based on the low-levels of PCBs detected in the recycled concrete aggregate and relatively short duration during which potential exposures may have occurred, according to a company fact sheet.

But the state Department of Environmental Protection has determined that the material was transported to and used in construction sites without the proper permits and oversight by the department. DEP officials earlier this year ordered Ford to remove the material from the sites.

The approximately 60,000 cubic yards of material that will be removed from the plant will first be sorted and tested, Holt said.

"We will sort it into 100- cubic yard piles and test it for PCBs and other contaminants, and if it meets the standards of the landfill we can transport it there," he said.

If the amount of PCBs is less than 2 ppm (parts per million), the material will go to permitted landfills for use as cover or fill, Holt said.

"If it is over 2 ppm, it will be treated as hazardous waste and disposed of in a hazardous waste landfill," he said.

Ford received a recycling center limited approval permit from the DEP on July 26 to conduct the removal, according to DEP spokeswoman Karen Hershey.

Hershey could not confirm in time for this story whether DEP representatives would be on-site to monitor the clean-up process.

"The DEP has a process where you can get a permit to bring in a portable temporary crushing device to crush material on-site to take it from larger chunks of concrete to smaller pieces that can be used for fill," he said. "Up to 2,400 tons of material may be removed per day. Our permit also requires that only empty trucks can come through Vineyard Road, and they all have to exit on Route 1."

Strict protocols are in place to ensure dust particles do not escape during the removal process, Holt said.

"The permit is pretty strict on dust restrictions, and we are held to very strict standards for testing for dust," Holt said. "We will have water suppression systems on the crusher to make sure no dust comes off the crusher. We will have air-monitoring systems on the premises of the site. We will wash the trucks as they leave so we do not track any dust onto the roads."

Efforts will be made to run the operation as quietly as possible, he said.

"We also have to meet the township's requirements that there are no noise [issues] either," he said. "With the crushing site we tried to locate it as far away from residential properties as we could."

The fill removal is expected to be completed within 60 days. The hours of operation will be 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, excluding holidays, Holt said.

Ford has also sponsored a Web site, www.concreteupdate.com, to explain the removal process.