Cleanup at mobile home park begins
Residents remain unhappy with township response; request more testing
BY COLLEEN LUTOLF
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY staff Angelo Saverino talks about his life in the world of major league baseball in his book, "The Heart of the Order," at his Brick home Friday. See story, page 6.

Cleanup of contaminated fill began at the Laurelton Mobile Home Park in Brick Tuesday.

"Today we plan to work on the storage pile," said Ford Motor Co. spokesman Jon Holt. "Tomorrow we start working on the potholes that were identified. That will probably take one or two days."

Once the contaminated fill, which was transported to several Edgewood Properties sites from the demolished Ford Motor Co. site last year, is replaced with clean fill, Holt said workers will begin testing the park's dirt roads for PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), a suspected cancer-causing compound.

"They're not doing much," mobile home park resident Bonnye Spino said Tuesday. "They uncovered the pile, and now it's covered up again."

About 30 cubic yards of the recycled concrete suspected to contain levels of PCBs deemed unsafe for residential sites by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) was dumped at the mobile home park last summer.

Most of the material remains stockpiled near the park's Route 88 entrance. Some of the rust-colored fill was used to fix potholes in the park's dirt roads, Edgewood reported, but residents there say all the roads in the park were covered with the material.

The DEP approved Ford's cleanup plan April 6; the township's own environmental engineer, David Backman, submitted his response to the plan March 24.

The residents' attorney, Roberta Burcz, and an environmental engineer the residents hired, Jeffrey C. Olcott, addressed the Township Council on April 11.

She asked why the township signed off on the plan when some recommendations made by township environmental engineer David Backman, of Birdsall Engineering, were not implemented in the report.

Backman had suggested in his report that cleanup crews take wipe samples from mobile home interior walls and that residents be relocated during the cleanup.

Although some of his suggestions were not implemented, Backman has said he is satisfied with the approved cleanup plan.

DEP spokesman Fred Mumford said contaminant levels were so low that the dust-monitoring system is sufficient. Neither wipe samples nor resident relocation is necessary, he said.

Burcz asked officials at the meeting why water monitoring was not part of the plan.

She requested the township pay for Olcott to take and test water samples or that the township conduct the testing.

She requested the fill be tested for quartz silica, a compound proven to cause cancer and one that Olcott said is in the contaminated fill.

"PCBs and PAHs [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons] - they're a minor contaminant," Olcott said. "This is of more concern not only to the residents of Laurelton Mobile Home Park but to Brick Township."

Quartz silica affects human lungs similarly to asbestos, he said.

While PCBs are thought to cause cancer, Olcott said quartz silica does cause cancer and the fill should be tested for it.

"I firmly recommend you discuss the issue of the silica," Olcott said.

Burcz also requested the township enforce any local ordinances that Edgewood Properties may have violated in its distribution or removal of the fill.

Township Business Administrator Scott MacFadden said the township would do nothing to hinder the removal of the contaminants.

"We won't put a condition on it whatsoever," he said.

Council Vice President Stephen C. Acropolis told Burcz that the Brick Township Municipal Utilities Authority should conduct water tests at the park.

As the cleanup began Tuesday, none of Burcz's requests were granted by the township.

"They don't plan on doing anything," Spino said. "They're not going to do it, and we're going to have to have our guy do it, and it's going to cost us a lot of money. Why should we have to pay this guy when the town said they were going to do it and now they're not?"

At least 41 residents have withheld their rents starting April 1, Spino said.

An Edgewood Properties spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny that the firm has begun eviction proceedings against the tenants.