If you have recently seen notices about contamination and remediation efforts at the Princeton Forrestal Campus, it is because of a new state Department of Environmental Protection regulation requiring the owners of any contaminated site that has affected neighboring properties to send out notifications by September 2.
But at least in the case with the Princeton Forrestal Campus, Princeton University, and the Plasma Physics Lab, the contamination on site is not a new finding. Site remediation efforts have already been in the works since 1986, says David Knights, the director of marketing for the Princeton Forrestal Center.
According to Knights, the problem stems from a discovery of contamination in a well at the Millstone Apartments 23 years ago. “It is a problem that is not solely ours,” said Knights, who explained that the Plasma Physics Lab and Princeton University are among the other parties involved.
“The problem was found at the Millstone Apartments at a well, and the water was contaminated with a variety of old industrial contaminants used everywhere in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s,” said Knights. “We immediately shut down that well” in addition to another well that was servicing what was then the Holiday Inn on the corner of Route 1 and Mapleton Road. Immediately, the property owners shut down all wells on site and switched over to Elizabethtown water.
The three parties have been chasing the problem ever since, he said. At the Plasma Physics Lab, the work is basically complete, he said. “They removed those sources, and they are actually daily treating the groundwater,” he said. “They’re doing a pump and treat.”
With regard to the Princeton Forrestal Campus, “we have identified nearly all of our sources, have removed them, and are now proposing to DEP a biological remediation. Our circles of contamination have been reduced significantly, and now we’re trying to do the final remedy.”
According to the notice, which was sent to the West Windsor & Plainsboro News, former operations conducted at the site included research activities, and chemicals associated with the former site operations include tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE). Since its discovery in the late 1980s, Princeton University determined that the contamination had migrated from the site, and the university has continued to investigate the matter until the extent of contamination is determined.
Knights said that unlike another common contaminant, deildrin — which was formerly used in crop insecticide, and has commonly been found on sites around the state — the chemicals found here migrate through groundwater. “Deildrin doesn’t migrate anywhere,” he said. “It parks itself in the soil and stays there.”
He said that the Princeton Forrestal Campus had — in a matter separate from the TCE and PCE remediation efforts — just completed a massive effort to remove deildrin. This effort only required the campus to put up signs. Now, with the new regulations, property owners are required to either post signs or send out public notifications if the contamination on site has migrated and affected neighboring properties.
The contamination on the site could have come from multiple sources, including drums and dump sites, and from former activities by Plasma Physics and Princeton University. “Everything in those years was done legally, but it was probably us, at the time,” Knights said. “But laws changed and environmental restrictions became stricter,” and those practices ended, he said. “This was stuff used very commonly in machine shops, and used legally for years and years. People were more casual in how they handled disposal in those days.”
While remediation continues, Knights said there is no risk to the public. “The risk to the public would be if this water were used by people in human consumption,” he said. “The minute the contaminants were found, we shifted right over to Elizabethtown.”
