Old Bridge may owe $21.1 million as its share of Superfund cleanup

OLD BRIDGE – The township may have to pay $21.1 million to the federal Environmental Protection Agency as its share in the $151 million cleanup of the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund Site.

Under the terms of a settlement announced by the EPA on Thursday, NL Industries, the source of the slag that was produced at its Perth Amboy plant, will pay $56.1 million to settle the litigation brought by the EPA and the state of New Jersey will pay $25.3 million. The remaining $48.6 million will be funded by the federal government.

The money will cover the past and future costs of the cleanup at the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund Site which extends for 1.5 miles along the Sayreville and Old Bridge shoreline along Raritan Bay.

“This settlement would allow EPA to finish this cleanup and return the waterfront back to the community so that residents and visitors can use the beach without being concerned about their health,” EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia said in a press release . “EPA looks forward to cleaning up the seawall and jetty and making good on our commitment to protect people from exposure to toxic lead.”

The parties have been identified as potentially responsible for the site, the EPA statement says.

The Raritan Bay Slag Superfund consists of the Seawall Sector, which contains a seawall about 2,300 feet long in Old Bridge; the Margaret's Creek Sector, which consists of a 47-acre wetland located immediately east of the Seawall Sector; and the Jetty Sector, which consists of the approximately 750-foot-long western jetty, located nearly a mile west of the seawall in Sayreville.

More: Old Bridge Superfund site may not be source of slag on beach

The timeline of the contamination dates to nearly a century ago when NL purchased United Lead Co. in Perth Amboy in 1928. NL operated the plant through 1975.

The facility extracted and processed lead from many materials, including scrap metals, scrap batteries and battery plates. The process generated furnace slag that contained lead and other materials.

NL hired Liberty Trucking of Fords to dispose of the waste. Liberty then took the materials to its property on Route 35 in Old Bridge where they were disposed in the Margaret's Creek and Seawall sectors and the western jetty in the Superfund site.

The 2,300-foot seawall and the 760-foot jetty were constructed with slag from NL's smelting operations in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The slag resulted in high levels of lead contamination along the seawall and in the sand of a recreational beach west of the seawall.

In 1983, Old Bridge – then known as Madison Township – bought the Seawall site with knowledge that lead waste had been dumped there, according to the EPA.

The EPA issued a cleanup plan in May 2013 to excavate and dredge material contaminated with lead at the site.

The EPA addressed the three sectors of the Superfund site in a specific sequence to prevent recontamination of cleaned up areas.

EPA completed the Margaret’s Creek Sector cleanup in September 2018 which involved removing about 15,775 tons of soil and 1,802 tons of slag from that portion of the site and cost about $7 million .

After becoming concerned about the quality of the engineering work being conducted by NL Industries for the Seawall Sector, EPA took over that work, which was completed last fall.

If the settlement is finalized and when EPA receives payment, EPA can begin the cleanup work on the Seawall Sector followed by the Jetty Sector.

The proposed settlement has been filed in federal district court and is subject to 60-day public comment period once notice is published in the Federal Register and New Jersey Register.

At the close of the comment periods, the United States and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection will evaluate the comments and decide whether to proceed and then, if appropriate, seek final approval by the court.

Email: sloyer@gannettnj.com

Susan Loyer covers Middlesex County and more for MyCentralJersey.com. To get unlimited access to her work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Old Bridge may owe $21.1 million as its share of Superfund cleanup