While the future WWM Properties shopping center sits undeveloped on Southfield Road as preparation begins for remediation work at the site, township officials are taking steps to try to prevent soil contamination like this in the future.##M:[more]##
Months ago Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh proposed an ordinance that would prevent soil from being brought in by developers from other areas to be used as fill at construction sites within the township. Hsueh based his proposal specifically as a result of the situation here. The ordinance, which has been drafted by Township Attorney Michael Herbert, is on the agenda for discussion at the Township Council on Monday, June 9.
Construction at the shopping center, where a day care center, bank, pharmacy, and several small retail establishments are proposed, was halted after the state Department of Environmental Protection found that Ford Motor Co. and its contractor, Edgewood Properties Inc., had shipped recycled concrete from the demolition of Ford’s former Edison Assembly Plant on Route 1 to various construction sites around the state, including West Windsor. Tests later found the cement to contain polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). A PCB is a mixture of individual chemicals no longer produced in the U.S. that can cause some health implications.
Officials originally believed the site in West Windsor contained only a small pile of fill of approximately 30 cubic yards (or two dump truck loads). Finally, it was determined that about eight to ten feet of fill was used to bring the site up to grade, and that the fill was more extensively spread throughout the site. A total of between 50,”000 and 60,”000 cubic yards — or about 5,”000 to 5,”500 dump truck loads — had been used.
The DEP said that capping the fill and removing only one hot spot was an acceptable course of action for remediating the site, but council tried to get Edgewood Properties to remove all of the contaminated fill.
During the council’s meeting on May 5, Township Attorney Mike Herbert told the council that WWM officials notified the township in April that they will excavate the 10 hot spots on site and cap off the remainder of the site.
Since then, Herbert says township officials have had a long meeting with WWM representatives, during which WWM gave township officials an e-mail sent to the company from the DEP indicating they could proceed with the remediation. Herbert says the DEP has told them to go ahead with their remedial action work plan, even though the DEP has yet to approve that remediation plan.
Hsueh says he wants to prevent another incident of contamination like this. “Right now we don’t have any laws regulating the soils moving into West Windsor,” he says.
A draft of the ordinance states that its purpose is to “require that all soils proposed to be deposited within the township are sampled, analyzed, evaluated, and approved prior to being deposited in the township.”
Further, the ordinance states, “soils imported into the township as fill material shall not contain contaminates at concentrations above the applicable soil cleanup criteria/soil standards.”
The ordinance also includes language that would require an owner, agent, lessor, lessee, tenant, or occupant of any property within the township to get a permit from the township before depositing or permitting the deposition of soil on site.
And before receiving that permit, that person will have to give township officials results of soil testing, a certification that the soils do not contain contaminants at concentrations above standards, the source of the soil, and whether it comes from a contaminated site, the ordinance states. The soil tests would have to be analyzed by a state certified laboratory, and the expenses to do so would be the responsibility of the recipient and/or supplier of the fill. Township officials would then review these submissions and decide whether more information is needed and could approve or reject the request.
The draft ordinance would not apply to routine landscaping activities that require less than 10 cubic yards of soil material.
