Another month, another gradual milestone for the exhaustibly-awaited cleanup of the Passaic River.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approved a final design for cleaning up the river’s lower 8.3 miles.
Final approval for a plan to clean another 9 miles has not happened.
It’s also not clear when the entire cleanup — covering both sections of the vast waterway that thousands rely on — will start.
“Occidental Chemical-Glenn Springs is performing the design of the upper 9-mile interim cleanup plan under EPA oversight. Pre-design sampling has started and will continue through the summer and fall,” EPA spokesman Stephen McBay told NJ Advance Media on Wednesday.
The EPA in 2022 announced that over 80 private and publicly-traded companiesmust pay to clean the long-polluted stretch of the river, one of New Jersey’s 115 Superfund sites and also called the “Diamond Alkali site.”
The companies, listed here, include smaller enterprises but also big ones like General Electric, Chevron, Honeywell and Pfizer. A previously-reached settlement with the EPA ordered the companies to cover a $150 million portion of the cleanup.
Federal estimates show the major remediation will surpass $1.8 billion in costs, but it remains unclear who will pay for that. If the initial settlement remains in place, climate groups argue Occidental Chemical Corporation, also known as OxyChem, will need to foot the bill.
The Diamond Alkali site — named after the company that once produced Agent Orange on its banks in Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood — has been on the federal Superfund list since 1984.
However, removing harmful contaminants from the river (substances like polychlorinated biphenyls, “PCBs,” mercury, copper and lead) has happened piecemeal. Toxins and pesticides like DDT are also known to lie beneath the river, which is often littered with garbage and debris.
As far as the hold-up, McBay of the EPA, declined to comment this week citing court proceedings and an ongoing “consent decree.” That agreement must be finalized by all parties before a cleanup can begin.
OxyChem, the company that took over from Diamond Alkali, is designing the cleanup after it was ordered by the EPA. The company previously said the remediation work could take up to 10 years to complete.
Residents and climate advocates have stressed that OxyChem should not be lauded for laying out how the cleanup will happen.
As the owner of the property — thus allegedly at fault for a lot of the pollution — that made sense, organizers said.
The Ironbound Community Corporation, South Ward Environmental Alliance and Hackensack Riverkeeper have been among the advocacy groups fighting for the cleanup to no longer be delayed.
Greg Remaud, who heads the NY/NJ Baykeeper, said in January: “Occidental’s delay has surely cost the public — in terms of health risks, the loss of safe fish to catch and eat, the loss of access and recreation, and the loss of economic vitality that a healthy river provides.”
Remaud previously said OxyChem was responsible for over 99% of the contamination in the Passaic River. That figure was based on a determination by an EPA official in a recommendation report obtained by NJ Advance Media. It is among the matters federal regulators are now discussing.
OxyChem officials have fervently disagreed with the EPA’s assessment and noted the matter remains in dispute.
“Our community-first approach will enable the remediation to get started, while the courts determine how much each of the companies should contribute to the cleanup,” Eric Moses, an OxyChem spokesman, said in an emailed statement provided Wednesday.
