19 Oct Understanding Hazardous Waste Part 2: On The Street Where You Live
Reading Time: 4 minutesESA Environmental Consultants is one of more than 200 environmental consulting companies working in New Jersey. Collectively, these consultants address thousands of contaminated sites at any one time. Perhaps more impressive is the fact that well over 20,000 impacted properties have been remediated in New Jersey during the past 40 years.
We like to think of our neighborhoods as safe enclaves. Yet environmental cleanup projects are found in virtually every municipality. Do these cleanup projects jeopardize neighborhood health and safety? And if environmental regulations are so stringent, why are there so many cleanups?
A Brief History of the Environmental Laws that Induce Cleanups
The environmental movement that we know today was born in 1969 and developed during the 1970s when a series of federal environmental laws were passed. These federal laws were the basis of the environmental laws that govern all 50 states. Without environmental laws, strict enforcement, and severe monetary penalties, most companies would not change their behavior, and industrial pollution would likely remain largely unabated.
When people speak of environmental cleanups, they often think of the large projects addressed by the federal Superfund law. Names like Burnt Fly Bog (NJ), Chemical Control (NJ), Toms River Chemical (NJ), Lone Pine Landfill (NJ), American Cyanamid (NJ), DuPont’s Pompton Lakes Works (NJ), Valley of the Drums (KY), and Love Canal (NY) conjure images of buried drums, ground water flowing in multiple colors, solvent odors, and cancer clusters. Indeed, these sites–and many others across the country–created indelible reminders of the dangers created when businesses operate in an unregulated and unfettered fashion. But environmental laws changed corporate behaviors, and eventually these sites and others like them were remediated. But Superfund was federal; what did New Jersey do?
On December 31, 1983, a groundbreaking environmental law went into effect in New Jersey called the Environmental Cleanup and Responsibility Act (ECRA). For those businesses subject to ECRA, and there were many, they could not sell their property until it was remediated. In the early days of ECRA, business owners were blindsided. Many had to clean up environmental impacts they did not cause — impacts caused by prior owners but inherited when new owners bought the property.
10 years later, ECRA was modified and became the Industrial Site Recovery Act (ISRA). Today, ISRA remains a powerful law that still requires current property owners to remediate their properties before they can sell them, or to prove that their usage did not result in any environmental impacts. This law fostered remediation at more sites in New Jersey than any other single law.
In 1988, the US EPA issued underground storage tank (UST) regulations. New Jersey then followed suit, publishing their own UST regulations. The next ten years saw a major thrust to remove and replace regulated USTs with state-of-the-art tanks and associated piping and dispensers. Hundreds of thousands of USTs, many of which were leaking, were removed nationwide. And, because of environmental regulations, these tank impacts were remediated.
Over the years, a major challenge resulting from these regulations became how to induce investors and developers to buy impacted properties (especially in the inner cities) remediate them, and then redevelop them. Enter New Jersey’s Brownfield and Contaminated Site Remediation Act of 1998. This law created incentives for investors to buy derelict, blighted urban properties, clean them up, and create jobs and ratables. Because of this, many urban properties that had been shunned were reclaimed.
Sometimes, things slip through the cracks. A childcare center called Kiddie Kollege opened in Gloucester County, New Jersey, in 2004. In 2006, Kiddie Kollege was closed when the NJDEP and the Department of Health and Senior Services found the facility was unfit for occupancy because it contained high levels of mercury. How this terrible thing happened is another story. But, as a direct result, a new law was passed requiring all existing childcare centers to prove that they were environmentally fit. Moreover, new childcare centers had to undergo rigorous due diligence to ensure environmental fitness.
Vapor intrusion — which occurs when organic vapor from substances such as gasoline travels through the soil into a building — didn’t become a recognized concern until the early 1990’s. The EPA drafted its first regulations in 2002, and the NJDEP published its own guidance in 2013. As a result, many buildings located on or next to sites with active subsurface cleanups or discharges have been identified as having impacted indoor air quality.
On November 3, 2009, the NJDEP revised its investigation and remediation protocols when it issued the Site Remediation Reform Act (SRRA), ushering in a new era of environmental compliance rules. The SRRA transferred environmental case management from NJDEP to environmental consultants via the Licensed Site Remediation Professional (LSRP) program. This one move unclogged a log jam of 20,000 cases whereby, finally, many long-standing cases were closed. Now, cleanups are more rigorous than ever before, yet the time for compliance has been drastically reduced and, in many instances, work is performed for less money.
As we approach 2021, are there more cleanups than ever before?
There are fewer impacted sites than ever before, but there is still much environmental work to be done. Today, because developable land is scarce, developers are willing to buy and remediate properties they may not have considered ten years ago. Most of the parties involved in today’s real estate transactions are far more savvy and aware of New Jersey’s stringent environmental rules. No industrial or commercial property is bought without undergoing some form of environmental due diligence. And, under the SRRA, even though a site has been closed in the past pursuant to proper NJDEP procedures, verification must be made to ensure that the former closure conforms to today’s NJDEP regulation standards. Some cases must be reopened to bring them into compliance with today’s standards (see Expired: Are Environmental Closures Valid Forever?). Consequently, many cleanups are still being performed, although the projects are often smaller in scope.
Should I be concerned about cleanups in my neighborhood?
New Jersey has some of the most stringent environmental policies in the nation. Highly hazardous, uncontrolled waste sites are rarely encountered anymore. Most of the sites being cleaned are not hazardous per EPA definitions (see Understanding Hazardous Waste Part 1).
Environmental consultants and contractors are trained to protect both their employees and the community. Therefore, the likelihood of danger to residents from the work done on these sites is minimal because all environmental remediation work performed in NJ must be performed under the guidance of licensed individuals employing regulated safety practices. Employees working on such projects must follow the protective requirements of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Additionally, under the SRRA, there is a new requirement mandating that each responsible party post a sign indicating that a cleanup is underway. You can always get information by calling the consultant identified on that sign.
As a result of this collection of laws, rules, and regulations, more waste sites are being identified and cleaned than ever before. Often, they reside on small properties that may be located in residential, commercial, or industrial areas. As each remedial project is completed, our communities become that much cleaner and safer.