Reflections On 'Chemical Town'

Chances are, many who lived in Toms River nearly 30 years ago didn't know that Ciba-Geigy was quietly pumping millions of gallons of treated chemical waste into the Atlantic Ocean every day.

They didn't know about the 10-mile long pipeline that ran underground from the company's plant in North Dover, across Barnegat Bay and the barrier island and spewed its discharge 2,500 feet into the surf off Second Avenue in Ortley Beach.

They didn't know until one spring morning in May 1984, when the pipeline sprung a leak at Vaughn and Bay avenues. Then everything changed. Then everybody knew.

The pipeline leak spawned The Ocean County Citizens For Clean Water, Save Our Ocean and other nonprofit environmental groups. They all had one goal - to shut Ciba down. And they eventually succeeded.

After the 1984 pipeline break, Toms River's claim to fame was hosting not one, but two Superfund sites - Ciba-Geigy and the Reich Farm. Toms River became synonymous with pollution. There was even a public television documentary about Toms River dubbed "Chemical Town."

Dan Fagin's recently-released book "Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation" brought back those days in vivid focus.I was an Asbury Park Press reporter covering Toms River during that tumultuous time.

The pipeline wasn't always there. Before its construction in the mid-1960s - the company, which was known as Toms River Chemical Corporation back then - had a much more convenient, cheaper place to dispose of wastes from its massive dyestuffs production.

The wastes were piped into the nearby Toms River. The late Beachwood Mayor William T. Hornidge once said he could tell what time of the day it was by watching the river change color.

Greenpeace days

My first experience with Ciba-Geigy came early, in 1985. Greenpeace had sailed into Ortley Beach and dropped anchor. Several divers plunged into the surf with stainless steel salad bowls, a symbolic attempt to plug the pipeline.

When the Greenpeace members came ashore, twelve of them were promptly arrested for interfering with the pipeline's operation. And lawyers throughout Toms River fell all over themselves vying for the chance to defend them.

Former Asbury Park Press reporter Donna E. Flynn and I interviewed several of the Greenpeace members shortly after they got off the boat. A few days later, we were both subpoenaed by Ciba-Geigy attorneys who wanted us to turn over our notes from the interview.

Donna had already disposed of hers. Unfortunately, I still had mine. We had to appear in court, along with the Greenpeace members. Gary Deckelnick, our legal editor at the Press, laughed at my nervousness about going to the slammer. We were not to give up our notes.

"Don't worry," he snorted. "We'll send you toothbrushes in jail."

Fortunately, it never came to that. The case was heard in the the Dover Township Municipal Building's Township Council meeting room, to accommodate the crowd. Twelve lawyers - one for each Greenpeace defendant - were present, including Daniel J. Carluccio, who went on to become Ocean County Prosecutor a few years later.

Dover Municipal Court Judge Martin Ligouri presided over several hours of testimony. He eventually ruled that his jurisdiction ended at "the water line," and charges were dropped.

Linda Gillick - whose son Michael was diagnosed with neuroblastoma when he was only three months old - founded the Citizens Action Committee on Childhood Cancer Cluster. Michael wasn't expected to live to his first birthday. He is still alive.

Ciba was the also the main topic at the Ocean County Board of Health meetings for many years.

The EPA and the clown

Federal Environmental Protection Agency officials, state environmental officials and Ciba representatives met monthly in the basement of the Dover Township Municipal Building. Most of the meetings were fairly dry and scientific.

But one stands out in my memory.

A local man named Nick Saviano - who worked a second job as Elmo the Clown - decided to attend one day. He stood the entire meeting dressed in a yellow and red polka dot clown suit, red rubber nose, hideous orange wig and bulbous clown shoes. He would have made Bozo proud.

Saviano was also toting a large sign that read "Stop Clowning Around," which he held in silent protest. He parked himself next to Ciba spokesman Glenn R. Ruskin, who could barely contain his disgust at the sight of Elmo.

When the EPA and DEP suits were done with their discussion, they asked for public comment. Up stepped Elmo. He began asking questions. The suits sat with perfect poker faces, listening to a man dressed in a clown suit. I can't remember exactly what said. It was one of those "I wish I had a camera" moments.

Reich Farm

Ciba wasn't Toms River's only pollution problem. There was the little matter of Reich Farm and pollution at the old Dover Township Landfill.

Back in 1971, the Reich family agreed to let independent trucker Nicholas Fernicola store what he called empty 55-gallon drums on three acres of their egg farm on Route 9 North.

But they weren't empty. Many were stamped "UCC" for Union Carbide Corporation. And by the time Fernicola was done, the contaminants seeped into the sandy soil. The Reich Farm was added to the Superfund list.

Everybody thought Fernicola was dead. I called the state Department of Environmental Protection and the EPA to see if they had ever tracked him down.

The answer was always the same.

"As far as we know, he's dead."

But he wasn't. One day I got a call from a source who will forever remain anonymous. Fernicola was very much alive and might talk, the source said.

The source promised to set up a meeting. He called back on Halloween. The Toms River Halloween Parade almost ready to kick off. Not a good time to travel through Toms River.

"Ya gotta come now," the source said. "He's gonna back out if you don't come tonight."

So I dodged the heavy traffic piling up in downtown Toms River and headed to the source's home in Toms River. When fellow reporter Kirk Moore and I arrived, Fernicola was sitting on a couch, very much alive.

We listened in awe as Fernicola recalled how he had dumped the drums at Reich Farm and the landfill. A cloud of blue cigarette smoke swirled around his head as he spoke, sometimes angrily.

Union Carbide had paid him to make the drums disappear.

"It wasn't illegal," he said. "There were no laws back then."

We spent about an hour with Fernicola. Then I sped back to Toms River to file the story and ran smack into the parade. As I inched down East Water Street, I noticed I kind of was in the parade, surrounded by floats and antique cars.

Somehow I managed to park in the old Observer parking lot, then ran down to West Water Street where the Press office was located. The story got filed and I went home exhausted but happy.

The end of Ciba

Eventually, the environmental groups and the public outcry against Ciba wore the company down. Ciba slowly began closing most of the buildings on the 1,250-acre site. The pipeline was closed. A 30-year-groundwater treatment program began and is still in operation today.

By 1991, production at the Route 37 West plant had nearly stopped. Ciba relocated the paint and dyestuffs production to Louisiana and Alabama.

"It used to be you could stand out here and you couldn't even hear yourself think," security guard Lawrence Harvey told me in a 1991 Asbury Park Press interview. Now you can hear a pin drop out by the back gate."

"Ghost town," he said, as he stubbed out a cigarette.

Eventually, residents who believed their illnesses were related to the Ciba pollution banded together and retained Massachusetts lawyer Jan Schlictmann of "A Civil Action" fame.

Schlichtmann, who was bankrupted after years of fighting a pollution case in Woburn, Massachusetts, was eventually exonerated when Massachusetts environmental officials traced the source of residents' illnesses to W.R. Grace.

He told me in an Asbury Park Press interview that he learned a valuable lesson from the Woburn case. Mediation, not litigation, is the way to handle pollution cases.

In the end, the Toms River residents did receive a settlement, but the terms have not been disclosed.

You can drive through the Ciba site today through the back entrance on Oak Ridge Parkway. But you won't see much.