Flood Waters Completely Drained, System to Treat Contaminated Ground Water Back On Line at American Cyanamid Superfund Location

(New York, N.Y.) In excess of 200 million gallons of flood water has been drained from the American Cyanamid Superfund location in Bridgewater, New Jersey and the system used to capture contaminated ground water under the location is now functioning, the E.P.A. announced today. Ground water under the location is highly contaminated with metals and VOCs, such as benzene and xylene from the former manufacturing activities. E.P.A. continues to oversee the assessment, cleanup and repair work at the location and previously scheduled cleanup work is resuming.

"The devastating flooding caused by Hurricane Irene posed a major challenge at this Superfund site, but we are now back on track," said Judith A. Enck, E.P.A. Regional Administrator. "The system to pump contaminated ground water to a nearby treatment facility is now up and running and we are keeping the contamination from spreading."

The ground water system is now pumping about 475 gallons per minute to the Somerset Raritan Valley Sewage Authority. The system pumps this water from the ground and conveys it to the sewage authority where it is treated and discharged into the Raritan River.

E.P.A. is also overseeing the restoration of and enhancements to the berms surrounding 2 large chemical waste impoundments that were over-topped by flood waters from the Raritan River. The work will be completed this week.

Work to install a system to prevent contamination from seeping from the 2 waste impoundments into the Raritan River, Cuckholds Brook and Middle Brook has resumed. E.P.A. estimates that the impoundments contain nearly 900,000 tons of waste material, consisting mainly of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), semi-VOCs and metals. The sludge and soil in the impoundments contains metals, cyanide, and VOCs. E.P.A. will oversee the installation of a ground water capture system along the Raritan River and Cuckholds Brook designed to capture and prevent ground water from seeping into the water bodies. The work is expected to be completed in the spring of 2012.

E.P.A. is also evaluating options for cleaning up a major portion of the location and expects to release a suggested cleanup project this winter. A separate study to determine options for addressing the contamination from the 2 large chemical waste impoundments is expected to be completed in late 2012 or early 2013. E.P.A. will evaluate this study and will subsequently develop a suggested cleanup project for the impoundments.

The American Cyanamid Superfund location is located in Bridgewater Township in Somerset County. The location currently encompasses approximately 435 acres south of the New Jersey Transit commuter rail line and adjacent to the Raritan River. Between 1915 and 1999, the location was used for various chemical manufacturing operations. Numerous surface impoundments were used to store by-products of the chemical production, dye production and coal tar distillation processes that took place on the site.
The American Cyanamid Superfund location was badly flooded as a result of Hurricane Irene, putting virtually the entire location underwater and leaving In excess of 200 million gallons of flood waters that had to be pumped from the site. The flood waters damaged some of the berms and other structures on the location and crippled the ground water treatment system.

For more information about the site, visit the website at: http://www.epa.gov/region02/superfund/npl/american_cyanamid/.

Follow E.P.A. Region two on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/eparegion2 and visit our Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/eparegion2.

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