Craig Matthews/Staff Photographer
The Vineland residents evacuated from their homes because of the potential ammonia leak are back in Cumberland County some were staying at hotels. The EPA is monitoring the area of pear and N. 6th Street. July, 13,2016 (Craig Matthews/Staff Photographer)
Posted: Thursday, July 21, 2016 4:32 pm
MARTIN DeANGELIS, Staff Writer
All the Vineland residents frozen out of their homes recently by an ammonia leak in a local ice plant should be back safely Friday, according to a federal environmental official.
Elias Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency, said contractors had removed more than 90 percent of the ammonia from South Jersey Ice and Cold Storage’s refrigeration system as of Thursday.
“After today’s removal of the liquid ammonia, the immediate risk to the public will be over,” he said, adding that “no further evacuations are expected.”
In the daytime hours that work went on Wednesday and Thursday, officials ordered an evacuation by residents within a 500-foot radius of South Jersey Ice. They were allowed to go back home by 5 p.m. each day.
But Rodriguez said residents of seven homes “in the immediate vicininty” of the plant, in the 500 block of East Pear Street, were still in the hotels Thursday where they’ve been relocated for almost two weeks.
“We expect to get those residents back home on Friday,” he said.
Rodriguez warned, though that ammonia “gives off a strong odor and residents may smell ammonia in the immediate vicinity. No health effects are expected from this smell and the EPA will continue its real-time air monitoring as a precaution.”
Current air monitoring has shown “no concerns for the community,” added the spokesman, who said the EPA has worked on the case with officials from the city of Vineland, Cumberland County and the state Department of Environmental Protection.