ccutler wrote:I remember riding my bike to the waterworks on that road in the late 70's. A large pipe was pumping rainbow-colored fluids into one of the ponds. Lovely. and by the time I was riding out [I turned around, didn't hang out there], my nose and throat were burning.
Yes the south side is the dirty side and the north side didn't have the factories, just offices and an old farmhouse that was demolished to make way for the mall.
I didn't realize that the 'hill' to the right of Doremus was toxic, I thought it was related to recycling sewage from the sewage plant.
Yep the "hill" is full of much of the nasties that came out of the lagoons to date. A normal landfill like might have sewage sludge or other municipal wastes, typically isn't covered with the liner like that on top- typically they just cap with a feet thick layer of clean soil. The stuff that burnt your eyes is probably still in that giant pile (unless it all evaporated from the lagoon) so if the liner didn't exist it would still be releasing that lovely stuff into the air. Actually much (most?) sewage sludge is de-watered and then given to farmers or actually pellitized and sold as fertilizer now a days. If you see a liner like that on top of the pile- something yucky is probably brewing...
The star ledger had an article just yesterday or the day before that the EPA came up with (yet another) long term cleanup plan. Again everyone is bitching about it (last plan from DEP was shot down years back). It' typically takes 10-30 years of water treatment once they actually all agree on a design to get the job done. You have to wonder sometimes if it wouldn't be better to just get moving on an almost perfect plan rather then fight over it for 20 years and nothing major gets done all the while the thing is sitting there doing whatever it is that stuff right next to a river that supplies drinking water does....
According to the Star Ledger article , the WORST part is apparently the 2 lagoons that are on the other side of the freight track- right alongside the river itself. But that isn't even to be handled in the currently proposed plan- it's down the road some time itself- Isn't that lovely....
Anyway- railroad rights of way frequently have fun stuff in them from years of whatever. Normally it is what it is, I'm not an alarmist- but that area is particularly nasty and i wouldn't voluntarily spend time there without getting paid....
