Dredging, Restoration Work Complete At Contaminated Pompton Lake

The dredging and restoration work at the Pompton Lake Acid Brook Delta is complete, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently announced.

Work at the 36-acre site went on for more than two years and cost $50 million. It involved removing 100,000 cubic yards of sediment from the lake, which was contaminated with mercury and lead from a former DuPont facility.

Sediment at the bottom of the 200-acre lake needed to be dredged after mercury, lead, and cancer-causing substances TCE and PCE were found in the area. Nearby homes are located in the plume. The chemicals have made Pompton Lakes residents sick with cancer and lymphoma, according to an extensive report by The Record.

TCE is a volatile organic compound found in printing inks, adhesives, and rug cleaners.

The toxic substances were found in 26 private wells, including some for drinking water and were found vaporizing from polluted groundwater under the neighborhood and were found in more than 100 homes, according to the report.

More than 330 vapor mitigation systems are in the process of, or have been installed. Four properties are being monitoring long-term.

Those wishing to get out have tried selling their homes, but have received little to no interest from potential buyers.

The Pines Lake section of Wayne borders the eastern side of Pompton Lake.

Some residents living in that neighborhood were notified that drinking water in a well near some of their properties contains elevated levels of TCE.

An EPA spokesman said in 2013 that "there's no evidence there is contamination on that side of the lake."

"We know there's contamination on the western shore but as far as anything on the eastern shore, there's no there's no reason to think that there is contamination from that site impacting that side of the lake," Adolph Everette, chief of the hazardous waste programs branch for the EPA's region two section, which includes New Jersey, said in 2013.

Blasting caps and other explosives were made at the Pompton Lakes Works manufacturing site over a 92-year period, including for the U.S. Government during World Wars I and II. Manufacturing work stopped in 1994. Chemicals were used during the manufacturing processes to degrease and clean machines and metal parts. Some of those spilled onto the ground.

Email: daniel.hubbard@patch.com

Photos: Part of the 36-acre site Pompton Lake site. The U.S. EPA completed dredging work at the site recently. (Courtesy of EPA)