EPA finalizes cleanup plan at New Jersey Superfund site

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a Superfund cleanup plan at the former Unimatic Manufacturing Corp. plant in Fairfield, New Jersey. According to the EPA, the cleanup will require demolishing a building and removing contaminated soil from the closed plant.

Before ending its operations at the site, Unimatic used the site to run a metals molding facility and operated machines using lubricating oil that contained polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The company’s operations contaminated the soil, groundwater and a building on the property with PCBs.

The Unimatic plant operated from 1955 until 2001. According to the EPA, the company allegedly discharged wastewater containing PCBs through floor trenches into leaky wastewater discharge pipes. The leaky pipes allowed the PCB-wastewater to seep into the ground, contaminating soil and groundwater throughout the property and leading to soil contamination on the adjacent properties. Operations inside the building also contaminated the interior of the building.

“EPA’s cleanup will address the PCBs at this site in order to protect the health of people who live in Fairfield,” says Judith Enck, EPA’s regional administrator. “PCBs were widely used in industrial and commercial applications until they were banned in 1979. They persist in the environment and can damage the human immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems and are potentially cancer-causing.”

Under the EPA’s final cleanup plan, the building will be demolished. Following the demolition of the building, contaminated soil underneath the building will be removed. The EPA estimates that around 26,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil will be removed from the site.

The EPA will work with local officials to determine the best time to undertake the demolition and notify the public before demolition begins. Strict procedures will be followed to control dust during the demolition.

The EPA plan also requires removing and disposing of contaminated soil from portions of the site and backfilling those areas with clean soil. The soil will be dug up and properly disposed of at facilities licensed to handle the waste. The cleanup is estimated to cost $18 million.

In the next phase of the cleanup, the EPA will address the groundwater, which also has is contaminated with PCBs.