BY SCOTT FALLON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Environmental regulators knew three months ago that a chemical that likely causes cancer was found for the first time at the Ringwood Superfund site, but on Tuesday defended their decision not to immediately disclose the information to the public, saying they do not consider it an imminent health threat.
Community leaders are angry they were not informed sooner. They said they should have been told shortly after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency received information in late November that the chemical 1,4-dioxane was detected at high levels in the groundwater just a few hundred feet from homes.
The EPA “should have called an emergency meeting,” said Vincent Mann, chief of the Ramapough Turtle Clan, a Native American tribe that has made the mountains its home for at least 200 years. “I keep saying it over and over and over again, they are leaving the human element out of their management of this site.”
The discovery of 1,4-dioxane was made by engineers for Ford Motor Co., which dumped tons of toxic paint sludge nearly 50 years ago in Upper Ringwood.
Water samples taken from three wells west of Sheehan Drive in August found concentrations of 1,4-dioxane at 50 to 95 times New Jersey’s groundwater standard.
It was the first time scientists had looked for the chemical in Ringwood; the EPA only began requiring that 1,4-dioxane be tested for at Superfund sites nationwide last year, said Elias Rodriguez, an agency spokesman.
A report on the findings, dated Nov. 25, was sent to the EPA, which for years has been criticized for failing to ensure that the site is adequately cleaned up.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/epa-did-not-disclose-ringwood-contamination-1.1516597
Sort of like the government telling New York City after 9-11 that there was no air pollution to worry about.