Harrison Is Not the Only Town With EPA’s "Skin in the Game"

On August 29, 2022 (two years ago), Harrison Mayor James Fife inadvertently revealed at a Harrison Redevelopment Agency meeting what was supposed to be kept under wraps: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) planned to establish a Toxic Agent Orange Dewatering Plant at the PSE&G property on South Frank E. Rodgers Boulevard in Harrison. Director of Harrison’s Public Schools and Councilman James Doran was furious at Mayor Fife for disclosing this information. However, after regaining his composure, Councilman Doran devised a plan to keep this unsettling truth from the public.

Details of this concealment strategy can be found in our article, Concealment, The Truth & Lies About EPA’s Toxic Sludge Plant in Harrison. Despite his attempts to obscure The Truth about EPA’s plans, Councilman Doran confirmed Mayor Fife’s statement a month later at the September 20, 2022, Mayor & Council Meeting. He stated that every town had to have "some skin in the game" regarding the EPA’s Passaic River cleanup. Unfortunately for Harrison, its "skin in the game" meant becoming the site of a Toxic Agent Orange Sludge Dewatering Plant, alarmingly close to a residential community. In a puzzling contradiction, Councilman Doran, even while attempting to hide The Truth, couldn’t help but defend the EPA’s plan to process Toxic Agent Orange Sludge across the street from what is now a residential community of modern luxury apartment buildings.

EPA Community Meeting

The EPA is holding a community meeting on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Harrison High School, located at 401 Kingsland Avenue, Harrison, NJ. Although the meeting is being held in Harrison, it is open to the general public. Importantly, Harrison is not the only municipality impacted by the EPA’s Agent Orange Sludge dredging in the Passaic River. Neighboring towns, including East Newark, Kearny, and the Ironbound Section of Newark, will also find themselves with "skin in the game." Their “skin in the game” pales in comparison to Harrison’s skin in the game given the proximity (across the street) from the proposed Toxic Sludge Plant.

Additional Sites & Impacts Across Municipalities

The development of Upland Support Facilities (USFs) is integral to the EPA’s remediation efforts. These facilities, which will support dredging and dewatering operations, are proposed at several locations along the Passaic River but most of them are concentrated in and around the Town of Harrison. The “skin in the game” is not shared equally by all communities along the Passaic River. Environmental Justice is a nice slogan but in practice, it falls very short of its goal to protect already burdened communities. 

The "Skin in the Game" Facilities:

1. PSE&G Harrison Site: Located in Harrison, NJ, this site is a former utility facility and a former Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP). Its previous use was to take coal apply a solvent to create Natural Gas and store it in large above-ground tanks. PSE&G spent a reported 367 to 400 Million dollars to de-contaminate the property and it is no longer a contaminated site. It was earmarked for use as a Green Space / Park, Community Center, and Drop-off Area / Turn Around for the Harrison PATH station adjacent to it. Due to its central location along the Passaic River and its large available area, EPA wants to use the site to dewater toxic Agent Orange sludge from the Passaic River that has in addition to dioxin, a tar-like substance, Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (NAPL) a byproduct of PSE&G coal-based natural gas production.  There is also the placement of lime in the sludge to stabilize for transportation from the site by dump truck to yet-to-be-identified landfills. The development of this site will involve protective measures to safeguard existing properties including air monitoring and warning systems. Although EPA wants to use the property and is in negotiations with PSE&G, EPA has not yet secured the property. The remediation plan states that it will secure the property once the contractor for the Passaic River Clean-Up is selected. EPA does not actually do the cleanup work.
2. Silvi Site in Borough of East Newark: This site currently houses a concrete plant. The facility may be demolished, and the site will be developed to manage dredging debris, particularly Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (NAPL) NAPLs can be particularly challenging to manage in environmental cleanups because they can migrate through soil and groundwater, creating long-term contamination issues. In the context of the EPA's Passaic River cleanup, handling NAPL-containing materials means dealing with potentially toxic substances that are resistant to water-based remediation methods, requiring specialized handling and disposal techniques to prevent further environmental damage. As this site is unsecured for remedial action, access negotiations will begin once the contractor is selected. The NAPL is what is also being brought on land at the Harrison PSE&G property.
3. Margate Site in Newark: This site is currently used for equipment storage. The site is expected to support dredging and capping operations, and like the other sites, it will require protective measures to ensure that existing remediation systems are not compromised.
4. Mariana Site in Kearny: A vacant lot with an engineered cover system installed in 2022, this site will support the capping operations of the cleanup. Although debris and dredged material will not be handled here, the site is critical for storing capping materials and housing contractor and engineer support areas.
5. Harrison Support Area: EPA plans, in addition to the PSE&G property, to use the site for crew access, Contractor & Engineer support area, and temporary facilities. No sludge will be brought to this site.
6. Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC): PVSC will build a Toxic Sludge Dewatering Plant next to its existing sewerage treatment plant in the Ironbound Section of Newark NJ. PVSC has recently received approvals to build a Natural Gas Power Backup Plant. The PVSC plant closed down after a water surge due to the Sandy Hurricane flooded its sewerage treatment plant. Raw sewage was released into the Passaic River. Of interest, the same water surge hit the PSE&G property in Harrison NJ.

There will be water sampling conducted at the Kearny Riverbank Park in Kearny NJ. Each of these sites, scattered across Harrison, East Newark, Kearny, and Newark, is crucial to the EPA’s overall remediation strategy. However, EPA has been planning the clean-up of the Passaic River for a long time, decades.  The Town of Harrison has changed since EPA started its quest to clean up the Passaic River. The southern part of the Town of Harrison is no longer filled with contaminated and abandoned industrial properties. After over 26 years of redevelopment efforts, today’s Harrison is a vibrant residential community of well-thought-out modern luxury apartment buildings filled with a diverse group of residents (Harrisonians). EPA must rethink its plan to fulfill its mission statement: The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) mission is to protect human health and the environment. EPA has committed to making equity, environmental justice, and civil rights a centerpiece of the agency's mission

EPA’s bringing toxic sludge onto land in what is a residential community will have significant impacts on the surrounding residential communities, bringing with them concerns over safety, environmental protection, and the disruption of daily life.

Attend the EPA Public Meeting

If you are a resident, stakeholder, or environmentalist attend the EPA Public Meeting on Tuesday, August 27, 2024, from 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. to urge EPA administrators that they can’t use the PSE&G property to dewater the Toxic Sludge from the Passaic River and they should go down the river to South Kearny which will put at least a buffer between the Toxic Sludge and the community it purports to be trying to help by cleaning up the Passaic River.

The EPA’s plan to dredge and dewater Agent Orange-contaminated sludge from the Passaic River is not an isolated issue. Harrison, East Newark, Kearny, and Newark’s Ironbound Section are all bearing the brunt of this monumental cleanup effort. As residents prepare to voice their concerns at the upcoming community meeting, it’s clear that the stakes are high for everyone involved. Every town indeed has "skin in the game," but the question remains: at what cost?

This EPA project to Clean the Passaic River threatens communities that are already burdened by a landfill that was closed by a unanimous order by the Supreme Court of New Jersey finding irreparable harm in its Toxic Hydrogen Sulfite gas discharges, the Convanta Essex Incinerator plant across the river in the Ironbound section of  Newark NJ, and a rendering plant that was initially blamed by the owners of the Keegan Landfill as the source of poor air quality. The New Jersey Environmental Justice Law was passed to protect communities like Harrison.  Does the law have no teeth? There is for sure a lot of “skin in the game” that the law was designed to protect.

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