Politics & Government
DEP Says Pine Lake Park Wells Free of Contamination
Public comment open until Sept. 14
Time and nature have purged the water under of toxic chemicals so there is no need for the government to clean it up, according to state officials.
The state Department of Environmental Protection “has determined that no further action is warranted for the Pine Lake Park area ground water,’’ a notice co-signed by Gov. Chris Christie and DEP Commissioner Bob Martin proclaims.
The public has until Sept. 14 to comment on the conclusion and the remedial investigation, including widespread groundwater monitoring, that indicate “the ground water is no longer contaminated in this area.’’
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The entire neighborhood on the Manchester-Toms River border was served by private wells in 1987, when routine testing of one of those wells found volatile organic chemicals in the water.
The tested 1,337 wells between 1987 and 1989 and found carbon tetrachloride, tetrachloroethylene, methylene chloride and chloroform in the water and unsafe levels in 157 of them.
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In response to the crisis, the Manchester Township Utilities Authority had city water installed in Pine Lake Park, and private wells were banned.
The neighborhood bordered the site in Toms River, and it was the first suspected source of the pollution. Those suspicions were rejected because the groundwater from that old dye and epoxy works flows away from Pine Lake Park, not toward it.
In 1990 the New Jersey Attorney General sued the operator of a Route 37 asphalt plant, claiming it was the source of the pollution.
The DEP, in 2008, began an investigation to find out what needed to be done, if anything, to clean up the ground water. Monitoring wells, 30 of them, were sampled in September 2009 and none of the prior pollutants were found, according to the DEP. Multiple rounds of sampling of water from those wells detected none of the toxics.
As a result the DEP plans no further action and intends to lift the well area restriction now in place.
Details of the remedial investigation are included in a report on file with the at 1 Colonial Drive, according to the DEP.
Anyone wanting to comment on the investigation and its conclusions can write to the NJDEP Office of Community Relations, 401 East State Street, PO Box 413, Trenton, NJ 08625 or reach Lynette Lurig of the DEP at lynette.lurig@dep.state.nj.us.
