Action alert: Old Bridge shore access and EPA meeting update thread

[DarkSkies]

pics of the area

[DarkSkies]

I'm putting up a few links here, anyone else who wants feel free to put links or contacts up.

Old Bridge Township website:
http://www.oldbridge.com/

[DarkSkies]

more pics

[DarkSkies]

some more pics

[DarkSkies]

still mmore

[bababooey]

^^ Dark Skies, roving reporter. Seriously, great job.


Here's the latest on that meeting you went to. Next you will tell us you're running for Senate. I might vote for you, send me a free plug first while I'm deciding.
http://www.nj.com/news/local/index.s..._old_brid.html

EPA shuts lead-tainted beaches in Middlesex

Agency says closure could last 5-10 years
Friday, April 03, 2009 BY RYAN HUTCHINS
For the Star-Ledger


The Environmental Protection Agency is shutting down 1.3 square miles of coastal property, much of it along Raritan Bay, because dangerous levels of lead were found in the soil.

EPA officials said they would post 4-by-4-foot, bilingual notices warning of the threat posed by contamination, and will install split-rail fences restricting access to the western jetty near Cheesequake Creek in Old Bridge, at a small beach north of the jetty in Sayre ville, at the Laurence Harbor sea wall in Old Bridge and at Margaret's Creek to the south.

"Our plan is to post signs -- very aggressive signs, with strict language on it -- explaining exactly what the threat is," EPA project manager J. Daniel Harkay told about 100 people at the Old Bridge Environmental Commission meet ing on Wednesday night.
The EPA said the signs will read: "Public health hazard/ Sand sediment and water contaminated with high levels of lead/ Access to the beach and sea wall located behind these signs is restricted/ No swimming/ No sunbathing/ No fishing." The bills also note that expo sure to lead can be especially harmful to children and pregnant women.

The federal officials who spoke Wednesday said they did not know when, how or even if the sites would be cleaned up.

Pressed again and again by angry residents who wanted a timeline for when some sort of re mediation might be done, Joseph D. Rotola, the agency's regional Removal Action Branch chief, acknowledged that the sites could be closed for five to 10 years -- maybe longer; he doesn't really know. Pat Seppi, who will be the EPA's public liaison, tried to calm the group.

"Even working with the EPA, we get frustrated about the length of time," Seppi said.

Right now, the agency is only in a position to close the areas, notify the public about the danger and continue to look into the extent of the contamination, according to spokeswoman Elizabeth Totman.

"That's why we're investigating the scope of this," she said yesterday.

She said the agency does not have a time frame for when it might be considered for the Superfund list, which would make the site eligible for federal cleanup funds. She said there would be a better picture of what will take place in the next month or two.

We're in the very preliminary stages on this," said Totman.

Dozens of people spoke at Wednesday's meeting.

Some, like Rich Peterson, feared closing the sites for any length of time could spell disaster for Old Bridge and Sayreville, which have businesses that cater to fisherman and others who visit the no-swimming beaches.
"I can't see waiting around 10 years," said the Elizabeth man, who fishes there. "People will organize. People will protest. ... People will go bankrupt. People will have bad things happen in their lives."


The EPA reported the danger last month after receiving test results indicating very high levels of lead.

Rotola, the removal action chief, said Wednesday that residentially allowable amounts of lead measure 400 parts per million.

At the western jetty near Cheesequake Creek, the highest levels found were 198,000 parts per million -- nearly 500 times the residential limit and about 20 percent lead. The average in the area was 52,399 parts per million. The jetty's size depends on the tide, but is about 755 feet long and 20 to 30 feet wide.

At the Laurence Harbor sea wall area, the range of lead sampled was as high as 142,000 parts per million. The sea wall is about 2,345 feet long.

At the half-acre beach area in Sayreville, just north of the Cheesequake Creek jetty, the range of lead sampled was the same as at the jetty -- as high as 142,000 parts per million.
The Margaret's Creek site, which is a remote location not fre quented by people, is being added to the list at the state Department of Environmental Protection's request.

The DEP began testing wet lands in Old Bridge about two years ago when the township was looking to sell property, Ed Put nam, the DEP's assistant director of the publicly funded remediation program, said last month.

A 1972 memo from National Lead Industries, which had a paint manufacturing facility in Old Bridge, indicates the company used the area to dispose of spent cases from acid/lead batteries.
Because National Lead refused to help with the cleanup, the DEP turned the case over to the EPA in September, Putnam said.

State health experts at Wednesday's meeting said lead, built up in the blood stream over time, can cause brain damage, kidney failure, diminished intelligence and other issues. Children are much more at risk for absorbing lead than adults, as are pregnant women because of changed metabolism. The metal can be detected with blood tests.


http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-13/123873211849290.xml&coll
https://lostinjersey.wordpress.com/tag/epa/

[ledhead36]

Here is the latest. I think it will take more than 10 years. 2 years and they still have done nothing. dark thanks for all the work you put in on this.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_mark_diionno/...ndustrial.html
Di Ionno: Ghosts of industrial past keep Laurence Harbor from its beach

Published: Sunday, June 24, 2012, 8:20 AM


OLD BRIDGE TWP. — The Jersey Shore starts at Laurence Harbor, a section of Old Bridge Township. The Middlesex County hamlet is unmistakably a beach town; it sits on a bluff overlooking the Raritan Bay, with clear-day views of Sandy Hook, Long Island, and the expanse of ocean beyond.
In the center is a large parking lot with a bathhouse pavilion to accommodate beachgoers. There’s a bait shop right there, pizza and ice cream a few steps away.

Shoreland Circle, the residential street that overlooks the boardwalk and dunes, is a mixed collection of old narrow bungalows, and those recently expanded and modernized. Except for the hill, it looks like a neighborhood in any beachfront town, from Manasquan to Long Beach Island.
But the parking lot is empty these days, and the bathhouse is closed. A lone port-a-potty is all that’s needed.

There is no endless summer in Laurence Harbor these days. Just endless frustration. And unanswered questions. And a long, high, black chain-link fence that keeps most of the beach closed.
In the spring of 2009, the federal Environmental Protection Agency closed most of Laurence Harbor’s beaches and put 1.3 miles of Middlesex County waterfront on its list of Superfund sites. Now another summer is here, and will go, before the beach reopens. And maybe another. And maybe another.
The problem is lead-laden slag, which was taken from the old National Lead industrial site in Sayreville, where Dutch Boy paint was made, and used to anchor jetties and bolster the seawall in the area.

The EPA has a "preferred remedy" for the site, but will not make it public until next month. After that, there will be a 30- to 45-day public hearing period, ending either around or after Labor Day. And after that, well, who knows?

"We can’t discuss the proposal until it is made public," said Elias Rodriguez, a spokesman for the EPA, who added no exact date in July has been decided. "At that point, we’ll put forth several proposals, including our preferred remedy. Any cleanup schedule is contingent on the remediation plan that is decided."

Most people in Laurence Harbor take it in stride. What else can they do?
"I got over being angry two years ago," said Donna Wilson, who was working on her elaborate garden on her property, which overlooks the shoreline.
She bought one of the shotgun shacks for $395,000 a few years back — "I didn’t buy the bungalow, I bought the beautiful corner lot, and the view," she said — and began renovating right away. But within a year, the fences and warning signs went up.
A bungalow two doors down is now on the market for $260,000.
"I don’t worry too much about that," she said. "Because I’m staying for good, and I know that someday, I hope anyway, the beaches will reopen."





Residents of the Laurence Harbor section of Old Bridge are hoping for an end to the Raritan Bay superfund siteIt was during the 1960s and 1970s that a company called National Lead deposited slag throughout the seawall in Raritan Bay to help prevent erosion along the shoreline. Slag, is a byproduct from the lead refining process that contains toxic heavy metals. The lead stayed there for decades. It was in 2009, when the Environmental Protection Agency determined the water was unsafe for people. The beach has been fenced in and off limits ever since. (Video by Andre Malok / The Star-Ledger)


Watch video
In the three years since the beach was cordoned off, the word "slag" became part of the vernacular of the Middlesex County waterfront.
By definition, slag is "the vitreous mass left as a residue by the smelting of metallic ore."
In Middlesex, it is a vitreous mess left as the residue of heavy industry that once dominated the bayshore, then made worse by the decision 50 years ago to use the slag on the seawalls and jetties. The 2,500 feet of seawall in Laurence Harbor have shown elevated levels of lead, antimony, arsenic and copper.
The word "slag" is now synonymous with frustration.
"You wonder what the holdup is," said Dana Stovall, who watched as her son Jaydon Tortorello, 8, ran around the playground just a few yards from the fenced-off slag. "They put up the fence and that was that. Nobody’s cleaning it up."

Most of the slag on the Middlesex waterfront is in an industrial waste-product called kettle bottoms; the hardened gunk left over in the smelting process. The kettle bottoms are easy to spot. They anchor the jetty at Cheesequake Creek in the Morgan section of Sayreville, and were dumped among the granite boulders along the seawall. Unlike the natural rocks, the kettle bottoms are burnt-orange in color, and rusted or pockmarked with corrosion. They are dense and impossibly heavy.
The slag contamination stretches from the creek jetty to Cliffwood Beach, which, like Laurence Harbor, is a part of Old Bridge Township.
But there are places along the way where beaches are open, side by side with those closed. Part of the community frustration with the beach closing lies in what is still open. The fishing jetty at Cheesequake Creek is closed, but the adjacent beach, just yards away, is open.
"I’m trying to understand this contamination," said Peter Insalaco, who owns the bait shop and tackle shop at Laurence Harbor. "If there’s so much lead, why is the water safe here (the open beach) and not there (the closed)."
While most of the Laurence Harbor Beach is closed, the boardwalk, jetty, playground and walking path are open. So is the beach just a few feet from the closed section, where Nicole Oropallo waded in to put her kayak in the water.
"It would be nice if they got it cleaned up," she said. "But on the other hand, it’s nice that it is so quiet. When nobody’s here, I can let my dogs run."
Insalaco said the presence of the fence is "killing business in the area."
He opened his shop, Tackle U.S., last year, after the previous owner went out of business two years before.
"I opened hoping the beach would reopen soon," he said.
In fact, the area was reopened for fishing.
"That’s what doesn’t make sense," he said. "How bad can it be? That fence has got to go. It’s keeping the community down."
For Stovall, when the fences come down, life will return to normal. She once lived in a bungalow on Shoreline Drive, the house where Jaydon’s father grew up.
"He swam in this water since he was a kid," she said. "So did Jaydon. He keeps asking, ‘When will we be able to go back in the water?’"

[DarkSkies]

Thanks for the kind words, Ledhead and others.
I spent a lot of time going to those initial meetings, was even quoted in the news when I stood up, made a few criticisms of the EPA and their history of foot-dragging, and the townspeople gave me a standing ovation.

That felt good, but in the long run I really wanted to raise awareness of folks who would be hurt by this issue, as well as fishermen access.

I have been fighting for fishermen access for a good number of years now, and it seems that each year there is more apathy, unless guys are directly affected......














I have news for you folks reading this,,..
Access, once lost, is very hard to get back....


We saw this at Brookhaven/Shoreham in LI.
We have seen it on the jetty that marks the beginning of Highlands Harbor in NJ.

We have seen it at St Alphonse's retreat in Long Branch (incidentally Pebbles and I walked that beach the other day, and it's a crying shame to me that fishermen ruined it for themselves with the fantastic and easy access we had there)......


So for you folks who think it can't happen to your area...think again....and please think of getting involved the next time you hear of an access issue.....

Thanks again for the kind words, they mean a lot....

[storminsteve]

Dark thank you for your activism but you are still a googan!
Go the see the post in the surfcasting forum, goog fisherman, and see what I came up with. Hope you like it, just kidding!

[nitestrikes]

Good job dark. I remember the work you put in at Shoreham. Thanks for all.

[jigfreak]

We have seen it at St Alphonse's retreat in Long Branch (incidentally Pebbles and I walked that beach the other day, and it's a crying shame to me that fishermen ruined it for themselves with the fantastic and easy access we had there)......


So for you folks who think it can't happen to your area...think again....and please think of getting involved the next time you hear of an access issue.....

Thanks again for the kind words, they mean a lot....

Amen dude. I was there but did not see that argument. There were some mexicans that were cleaning fish with a hose that belonged to the retreat too. I would like to meet that guy that was giving the priest a hard time. Would like to lump him upside the head. Maybe twice for good measure. You can still fish there but back then it was so easy, park right there and walk 200' to the surf. It was like a whos who of nj surfmen. Man I miss those days.

Follow up on the original meeting.