$1 Million In Fresh Funding For Raritan Bay Slag Superfund Site

OLD BRIDGE, NJ — This week, three New Jersey sites already designated as Superfund sites received millions more from the Biden administration for clean up.

The three sites are: the Matlack, Inc. site in Woolwich, the Raritan Bay Slag site in Old Bridge/Sayreville, and the Roebling Steel site on the Delaware River in Florence Township.

The Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site stretches for 1.5 miles along the Raritan Bay seawall in Laurence Harbor.

Clean-up at the site has gone on for more than a decade now, since it was first designated a Superfund site in 2009. So far, only one portion has been completed: The EPA declared the "Margaret’s Creek sector" complete in 2018, which included restoration of the nearby wetlands.

Since being designated a Superfund site, that section of the seawall has been blocked off to the public.

This week, the Raritan Bay slag site was given $1 million in new funding. This latest round of EPA funding will be used to do work on the "Seawall sector." This includes excavating contaminated soil and mud, testing it and putting new soil back in.

President Biden has a Justice40 Initiative, which "set a goal to deliver 40% of the overall benefits of certain federal investments to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution," according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Prior Patch reporting on the Laurence Harbor Superfund site: EPA Takes Over Laurence Harbor Superfund Site Clean-Up (2021)