Top New Jersey Official Withdraws Groundwater Cleanup Rule

DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson told the state Senate Legislative Oversight Committee in testimony May 1 that the environmental community submitted comments on the DEP's proposal that asked for stricter standards for groundwater remediation.

At the same time, comments from builders complained that the agency's proposal was too strict and asked for predictablity, transparency and flexibility.

"I have elected not to adopt groundwater soil standards but to develop guidelines that will address comments provided by both sides," Jackson told the legislators.

"Simply put," she said, "groundwater cleanup standards at the each site are site specific. Contamination may move at one site and not move at all at another depending on soil chemistry."

Jackson said DEP officials believe that establishing minimum remediation standards is "crucial to New Jersey's economic development and to the transparency of that process."

However, she said site specific groundwater remediation standards will take more time to evaluate and develop and potentially approve or disapprove.

This landfill and drainage ditch system behind a derelict former chemical dye factory in Linden, New Jersey may have contaminated area groundwater. (Photo courtesy DEP)

In the interim, Jackson is recommending that a proposed licensed site professional program go forward. It requires that a professional who gets a license from the state and "knows the end goal" can advise clients what standards must be met.

"Coupled with other legislative codes and standards" this program will address majority of builders' concerns to make site cleanup process predictable," she said.

"The move is a major concession to high-polluting industries which have vigorously opposed these toxic clean-up rules," according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, a national association of employees in natural resources agencies that provided comments asking for stricter standards.

"This is an astonishing abdication of the state's primary responsibility for protecting drinking water,” said New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe, a former analyst with the New Jersey DEP.

Wolfe says that instead of strict absolute standards for groundwater remediation, New Jersey will have vague, relative guidelines that will be very hard to enforce.

According to the DEP, half of New Jersey residents depend on 900 million gallons of groundwater a day for drinking water. The agency has identified more than 6,000 polluted groundwater sites, forcing closure of hundreds of municipal and residential wells across the state.

Polluted groundwater can also migrate under buildings, causing "vapor intrusion” from volatile chemicals that poison building inhabitants.

In addition, the DEP has also scrapped the scientific methodology for evaluating impacts of soil contamination on groundwater.

Wolfe says this represents a "substantial rollback of protections" because impact-to-groundwater standards are typically lower than surface soil cleanup standards.

When coupled with the DEP plan to privatize toxic site clean-ups, says Wolfe, "much more discretion is placed in the hands of industry to decide whether public health and drinking water are safeguarded."

"In essence, DEP is ignoring the fact that soil contamination taints groundwater," Wolfe said. "As a result, we will be seeing many more pave-and-wave cleanups without regard to public health."

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