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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to try a new approach to clean up one of the many Superfund sites left by NL Industries.
The agency will hold a public meeting on July 7 in Pedricktown, Oldmans Township, to explain what it calls an "innovative approach" at the 44-acre local site, which has been on the Superfund list since 1983.
Dallas-based NL Industries, the former National Lead, operated a lead smelting plant on the Salem County property. Among other things, the company drained sulfuric acid from old car batteries, then crushed and processed them for lead.
The company, which reported a $17.2 million net profit for the first quarter of 2011, is one of New Jersey's leading Superfund polluters, also bearing some responsibility for sites in Bayonne, Hightstown, Sayreville and the seawall slag site in the Laurence Harbor area.
Over the years, the EPA removed piles of lead, soil, debris and standing water, demolished buildings and conducted tests and monitoring in Pedricktown. The agency originally cited the complexity of pollution in soil and ground water as a reason to divide the cleanup into multiple phases.
But in the new proposal, the EPA has decided the removal of contamination sources has caused a drop in heavy metals and other pollutants in remaining groundwater.As a result, the new approach drops plans to pump contaminated groundwater to the surface, treat it and discharge it into the nearby Delaware River. Instead, EPA proposes injecting a "non-hazardous additive" into the water to absorb lead, cadmium and other metals.
EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck said the new plan "will keep the contamination from polluting drinking water supplies and causing more damage to this important natural resource."
Some nearby residents are connected to municipal water lines, while those with private wells are monitored, according to the agency.
