EPA Granted Access To Cinnaminson Superfund Site

MOORESTOWN, NJ — Moorestown Council granted a federal agency the ability to fully investigate a superfund site in Cinnaminson during its meeting Monday night.

Council approved a resolution to allow the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) access to a sewage pumping station where a deep well will be installed and from which water samples will be taken with a 5-0 vote. The resolution also allows the EPA access to township property as a temporary staging facility for EPA's work.

“In addition to generally facilitating a better scientific understanding of the superfund site impacts to groundwater, EPA's efforts will help identify whether the Cinnaminson Superfund Site is a source of certain contaminants that have been, and continue to be, treated at a Moorestown water treatment plant so that residents continue to receive safe/clean water,” according to the resolution.

The cleanup focuses on properties bounded by Union Landing Road, U.S. Route 130, River Road, and Taylors Lane, as well as “properties outside these boundaries where contaminants may have migrated or threaten to migrate.”

Groundwater contamination was discovered by NJDEP through the review of groundwater monitoring data collected as part of the closure plan for the landfills in the early 1980s, according to the EPA. Contaminants including vinyl chloride, 1, 2- dichloroethane, PCE, TCE, cis-1, 2-dichloroethene (cis-1, 2-DCE), benzene and arsenic were found in the groundwater, soil and soil vapor.

The cleanup of the site is being handled in four phases:

• Cleanup of the groundwater contamination from the landfill at the site and the construction of a groundwater remediation system;
• Analysis of the effectiveness of the landfill's clay cap in reducing the generation of leachate, the contaminated liquid flowing from the site that contains many of the landfill's pollutants;
• Analysis of other industrial facilities located on the northwestern part of the site that contain soil and groundwater contamination and are the source of vapor intrusion in two nearby residential developments; and
• Analysis of contaminated groundwater that is not covered through implementation of the other three phases of work.

As part of the first phase of the project, EPA operated a groundwater remediation system from 2000-2013. EPA then shut down the system for two years, and is currently evaluating the results of that shutdown. The analysis of the clay cap discovered that it and other previous actions taken in response to the contamination have eliminated existing or potential risks to human health and the environment, and that no further action is needed for this phase of the project.

For the third phase, EPA installed vapor mitigations in homes in two nearby residential areas in 2010 that remain in place. An ongoing investigation into the nature and extent of vapor intrusion into these areas is also ongoing. Independent Remedial Investigation/Feasibility Studies (RI/FS) are currently underway for the third and fourth phases of the project.

Read more here: EPA Cleaning Up 400-Acre Superfund Site In Cinnaminson, Delran

For more on the cleanup of the Cinnaminson Superfund site, visit epa.gov.

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