Is your West Deptford home on contaminated soil? EPA expanding testing to find out
Posted on August 5, 2016 by Sheryl Barr
Source: http://www.nj.com, August 4, 2016
By: Rebecca Forand
The Environmental Protection Agency has expanded the area to be tested for possible lead contamination in the Birchly Court neighborhood with 28 properties on Woodlane Drive being added to the list.
Homeowners in the development, which was built in the 1990s, have found pieces of crushed car batteries in the soil around their houses. The batteries are believed to have been deposited by Mattea & Sons, a scrap metal and recycling facility nearby which previously owned the property Birchly Court currently sits on.
The black plastic pieces, heavily contaminated with lead, have been found in large quantities throughout the neighborhood and the EPA is testing the soil to see how far the contamination has spread.
“We are expanding the investigation to the rest of the neighborhood,” David Rosoff, the project’s on site coordinator, said. “That should take the next 10 weeks or so to complete, and then the agency will evaluate the whole data set.”
Two properties are already slated for excavation and remediation, which is scheduled to begin in the next two weeks and be completed in October.
The cost of each cleanup varies, Rosoff said, but the first one — which includes the two initial properties — is estimated to cost about $500,000.
The EPA will be paying for the cleanup out of the federal budget and then attempt to identify the entities responsible in order to recoup those costs, he added.
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Lead contamination could affect up to 34 homes in N.J. neighborhood, EPA says
By Rebecca Forand | For NJ.com
updated July 13, 2016 at 5:51 PM
WEST DEPTFORD TWP. — A family's recent plumbing project has exposed a potentially dangerous problem in the township's Birchly Court development, where lead-contaminated crushed car batteries have been found.
The Environmental Protection Agency is currently testing soil at a few properties in the neighborhood, and is looking to do so at the rest of them, representatives from the agency told concerned residents Wednesday afternoon.
An information session, the first of many, was held at the Verga Firehouse and provided those in attendance with a history of the find, the risks associated with it and what they can do.
Holding a large plastic bag filled with the black, plastic pieces, EPA on-site coordinator Dave Rosoff showed those residents what the contaminated material looks like.
"It is grossly contaminated with lead," he said. "Recyclers would take the lead core out and discard the plastic material."
The battery casings are believed to have come from another EPA Superfund site, the Matteo & Sons scrap metal and recycling facility. The property the development was built on was previously owned by Matteo, Rosoff added.
Seven sites in Gloucester County remain on the federal Environmental Protection Agency's list of Superfund program sites.
The investigation into the casing fragments began in May and the EPA is looking to collect soil samples from 34 properties on Birchly Court, Woodlane Drive and Oakmont Court.
If the soil is contaminated, the group will conduct an excavation of the contaminated ground material and replace it with clean fill, according to Rosoff. Two properties are already beginning the remediation process.
Lead contamination is a serious problem in a residential neighborhood, especially to children, EPA risk assessor Ula Filipowicz said.
"Children are a sensitive population. There's a lot of hand-to-mouth contact," she said.
Until a risk assessment is completed, they can't say how dangerous this particular contamination is, but since it contains lead — which is known to be toxic and cause neurological problems — she suggests anyone in the neighborhood take precautionary measures to limit exposure.
These include taking your shoes off when you enter your home, wet mopping walkways and washing children's hands.
At Wednesday afternoon's information session about a dozen residents were armed with questions and concerns about their own property and risk.
"Is any of this lead getting into our drinking water," Anthony Watson asked. "I'm hoping to find out I don't have a problem." As the EPA is just beginning their investigations, they ask any residents who are in the area to contact them with questions and respond to any inquiries and requests to investigate their property.