Contaminated Soil Poses Risk To North Jersey Drinking Water, State Says

NORTH JERSEY, NJ — State officials are concerned that thousands of yards of contaminated soil could run off and contaminate the area's water supply.

Top Soil Depot owner Allan Rombough Sr. and 20 trucking companies reached a settlement with the state Department of Environmental Protection in 2012 to remove 30,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and solid waste that have been on an abandoned 12-acre site in Wayne since 2009.

The property is located on Pompton Plains Crossroad next to the Pompton River and near confluence of the Pequannock and Ramapo rivers. State and local officials are concerned that the soil and materials contaminated with low levels of PCBs and dioxin runoff into the rivers, threatening the area's water supply.

About 15,000 cubic yards of the materials remain on the site, said Bob Considine, a DEP spokesperson. Rombough is out of compliance because he has not hired a licensed site remediation professional, has not submitted an investigation evaluation and not paid annual remediation fees or submitted other required paperwork.

Rombough has told the DEP that he is unable to complete removing the materials, Considine said. The DEP's enforcement branch is working with the Attorney General's Office on how best to address removing the remaining material.

RELATED: State, Top Soil Owner Reach Settlement Agreement

Allan Rombough Sr. testifies at a court hearing in 2012. By Daniel Hubbard

It is the second time Rombough has violated a cleanup agreement. He signed a judicial consent order in 2008 agreeing to clean up the property, but never fully complied with it, the state previously said.

Officials wanted Rombough thrown in jail for refusing to clean up the 12-acre site. Rombough reportedly allowed 20 trucking companies to dump the fill on the site and then just left it there, officials previously said.

The 12-acre site is now abandoned. A trailer on the site is falling apart and a court order prohibits anybody from going on the property, which has been blocked off with large concrete barriers and a construction vehicle.

Rombough and his son Alex were caught violating the court order after a state inspector testified that he saw them remove documents from the site just days before they were scheduled to appear at a court hearing in 2012.

Rombough testified at the hearing that he has trouble remembering things and allegedly has Parkinson's disease. Superior Court Judge Mary Margaret McVeigh ordered he go through a battery of tests to see if he had the mental capacity to understand to stay off the site. The test results were never released.

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Photos: Some of the contaminated soild at the vacant Top Soil Depot site on Pompton Plains Crossroad. — Photos by Daniel Hubbard