With the sun high in the sky and distant irrigation sprinklers looking like fountains on a lush green plain, the 297 acres of Hallock’s U-Pick Farm in Plumsted is a rural landscape of arresting beauty to people more accustomed to the cities and suburbs of the Garden State and its neighbors.

“That’s why we came out here,” said Township Committeeman Leonard A. Grilletto, a 73-year-old Manhattan native and retired auditor, who moved to Plumsted in 1979.

The township was incorporated way back in 1845 from land in neighboring Jackson, and is said to be named after a Quaker landowner, Clement Plumstead (who spelled it with an a). But if you’ve never heard of Plumsted, you’re probably not alone.

More common references are to New Egypt and Cream Ridge, the township’s two mailing addresses. New Egypt High School and a 73-year old dirt oval race track known as New Egypt Speedway are local institutions that do little to spread the township’s name.

Modified racers rounded Turn 3 on the dirt oval track at New Egypt Speedway in Plumsted, a local institution for 73 years that's known well outside the area, but nonetheless does little to spread the township's actual name. Andrew Maclean

Plumsted is set in western Ocean County, 15 miles and worlds away from the county’s crowded stretch of Jersey Shore. Instead, the 40-square-mile township is home to a less dense mix of Pine Barrens and farmland.

With a population that has steadily increased since the Great Depression, just over 8,000 people live in Plumsted, many in subdivisions that spouted up in the 1980s and 90s. It was then that local officials led by former Mayor Ron Dancer, now a state assemblyman, began trying to preserve Plumsted’s rural character by encouraging farmland preservation through the purchase of easements by the county.

But starting in the 1940s, that same out-of-the-way feel that drew Grilletto and others to Plumsted had also attracted a far more sinister exploitation of the rural landscape that some say has stubbornly persisted to this day.

These days this old irrigation sprinkler is little more than a reminder of Plumsted's agricultural heritage.Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

In a practice known as midnight dumping, for decades hazardous materials were spilled into open pits or buried in drums, mainly in wooded areas on or next to farms, and often under cover of darkness. Eventually, discovery and testing of illegal dumps made Plumsted home to no less than five federal Environmental Superfund sites, a rare concentration for an area with little industry or manufacturing of its own.

Superfund sites, commonly associated with urban industrial centers like Paterson or Jersey City, are properties so badly contaminated with carcinogens and other harmful pollutants, and so urgently in need of cleanup, that they are placed on a so-called National Priorities List. Placement on the list make the costly cleanups eligible for up-front financing from the Superfund, while the government then seeks reimbursement from companies or individuals identified as responsible parties.

The good news about Plumsted’s Superfund history is that it’s mostly just that, with four of the five sites having been taken off the list, meaning they had been deemed sufficiently clean to be reused or redeveloped, though typically with continued monitoring.

The preservation of so much open space have made large tracts of undeveloped land inconspicuous, and with the passage of time the township‘s Superfund past is largely forgotten, especially among younger residents and new arrivals.

Plumsted is a rural, western Ocean County community that has little in common with the county's crowded Jersey shoreline.Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

“I never heard about that,” said 17-year-old Corey Reilly, a senior at New Egypt High School, who was pumping gas at the Wawa on Route 539 and Lakewood Road, two of the narrow byways that crisscross the township.

But Reilly was not surprised by the township’s contaminated past, and he was glad to know that only one out of the five Superfund sites still had not been declared safe.

“That sounds a lot better than not five out of five,” he said, setting the gas nozzle back in the pump. “There’s a lot wrong with the environment these days.”

And still right in Plumsted, according to state officials.

The Russo property on Ocean County Route 539 n Plumsted Township, where the state Department of Environmental Protection says dumping of food waste and other material has contaminated water and soil.Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

A couple miles down Route 539 from the Wawa, lawyers for the state Department of Environmental Protection say Sam Russo has been operating an illegal dump for food waste, construction debris, soil and other matter on his 94-acre property. Last month the state said testing revealed the presence of PCBs linked to cancer and harmful pesticides in soils Russo has allowed to be dumped there.

The DEP says the contaminants threaten local waterways and groundwater supplies, while surrounding homeowners say the putrid stench from the Russo site has driven some neighbors from their homes.

Russo says his property includes a working farm, the Suzie Q., and has asserted that the state’s right-to-farm law gives him wide latitude to use it as he pleases. But he has promised an Ocean County Superior Court judge that he would abide by certain restrictions on the kinds of materials he can accept for disposal while his case plays out.

Russo’s PR firm did not respond to requests for comment for this story. But the firm issued a press release last month quoting Russo as saying he was confident the court, “will realize there’s no justification for limiting our farm.”

Grilletto, the township committeeman, said the Russo case was like deja vu after the Superfund past that Plumsted had nearly put behind it.

“It’s blight on our township,” Grilletto said.

Bound volumes containing thousands of pages of documents involving Plumsted's five Environmental Superfund sites occupy their own book case at the Plumsted Branch of the Ocean County Public Library.Steve Strunsky |NJ Advance Media for NJ. com

All five of Plumsted’s past and present Superfund sites are named for the farms where the earlier dumping took place, and each one has its own website maintained by the EPA. Volumes of detailed files on the sites occupy their own book case at the Plumsted Branch of the Ocean County Library system.

Plumsted’s five Superfund sites are:

Pijak Farm, where “free-flowing liquids” and 3,740 chemical drums were buried in the woods off Fischer Road from 1963-70. It was removed from the National Priorities list in 1997.

Hopkins Farm, a 57-acre spread along County Route 539, where chemicals were dumped in the 1950s and 60s, contaminating soil and groundwater. It was removed from the priorities list in 2002.

Wilson Farm, where a 10-acre portion of property was used to dispose of “bulk liquid and drummed wastes on the surface of the site” in the 1960s and 70s. Removed from the list in 2009.

Spence Farm, where dumping on 20 wooded acres at Route 28 and Moorehouse Road contaminated ground and surface water with volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, potentially harmful contaminants that can easily evaporate into the air. The site was removed from the priorities list in 1997.

Goose Farm is Plumsted’s only Superfund site that remains on the National Priorities list, though the EPA deemed contamination to be “under control,” and the site is now being monitored. According to the EPA, a maker of “rocket fuel propellant” disposed of solid and liquid hazardous wastes on a the 6.6-acre site from the mid-1940s through the mid-70s, contaminating soil and groundwater with hazardous chemicals.

New Egypt is an unincorporated place name that, along with Cream Ridge, is one of Plumsted's two mailing address. However, New Egypt is a more prominent name than Plumsted, attached to the township's one high school, its historical society and the well-known local speedway.Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The Goose Farm’s cleanup plan spelled out by the EPA on the web page exemplifies the time and effort Superfund cleanups can require.

“In 1985, the EPA selected a remedy to clean up the site that includes recovery and treatment of contaminated groundwater and flushing the soil with the treated effluent, in conjunction with evaluating the need to cap the site, and testing the soil for contamination,” the EPA states. “Start-up of the groundwater remediation system occurred in June 1993 and the operation of the system is ongoing.”

David J. Leutwyler is a former Plumsted mayor who is now holds down the township jobs of community development coordinator, buildings and grounds supervisor, and code enforcement officer. Leutwyler moved to the township in 1992, into a subdivision off Hopkins Road.

David Leutwyler, a former Plumsted mayor who now holds several township jobs in the municipal building, said he had never heard of a developer, homebuyer or any other potential investor passing on Plumsted because of its history of Superfund sites, four out of five of which have been deemed sufficiently cleaned up for reuse.Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

The red brick municipal building where he works is part of vast government complex along New Egypt-Allentown Road that also includes the library, the high school, and athletic fields.

Some locals contacted for this story — a realtor, a tenant farmer — declined to talk on the record about the town’s Superfund history, wary of dredging up that unsavory chapter of the township’s history. But Leutwyler said he had never encountered any reluctance by developers, homebuyers or anyone else to invest in Plumsted due to environmental concerns.

“I’ve never had anybody say they didn’t want to build here because of that,” Leutwyler said. “But we’re pretty much built out at this point. We have the most preserved farmland in Ocean County. I don’t know what the count is now — for a while it was over 3,000 acres, I know it’s got to be at least that, if not more — and a lot of open space. It’s what a lot of people moved here for. It’s what drew me to come here.”

Charles Hallock, owner of the 297-acre Hallock You-Pic Farm on Fischer Road, said the former federal Environmental Superfund site next-door has been cleaned up, monitored and never an issue for him of his customers.Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

At the Hallock farm on Fischer Road, where customers pick their own crops and pay by the pound, owner Charles Hallock said he was well aware of the township’s Superfund history, but that it was a non-issue.

“It’s not affecting me. I don’t think it’s affecting us, our business, in any way,” said Hallock, a brawny and amiable 56-year-old farmer. “It’s been tested for years and everything is clean.”

Hallock was raised on the farm, and sold Ocean County the development rights to it, so that it’s still in the family but preserved forever for agricultural use only. Near the entrance to the farm’s barn area and store, a small billboard near a rusted red tractor proclaims the area “Preserved Farmland.” Another sign credits the Ocean County Farmland Preservation Program, the State Agriculture Development Board, and the county freeholders.

“I love it,” Hallock said of his land. “Like I said, I’ve been here my whole life. My parents did, and my two daughters, and my nephew, and that’s the next generation. And this is all preserved ground, so this will never be developed.”

One of Hallock’s repeat customers, Rebecca Stevens, was at the gravel parking lot loading her SUV with 80 pounds of Jamaican hot peppers she had spent all morning and afternoon picking that warm fall day. Stevens, 62, who lives in Queens, New York, said Hollock’s farm reminded her of Liberia, the West African nation where she was born.

Stevens knew nothing of Plumsted’s environmental history, and she seemed to care even less. She said she had been coming to Hallock’s farm for years and would keep on coming, picking pecks of Plumsted peppers on her annual harvest day and then freezing them for use all year in Liberian recipes.

“Hot, hot, hot,” she described the peppers approvingly. “I come back every year.”

For years, Rebecca Stevens has picked Jamaican hot peppers at Hallock's You-Pic Farm in Plumsted. She had just loaded up her SUV with 80 pounds of peppers she had picked one day in September, which she planned to take back home to Queens with her, freeze, and use year-round in recipes from her native Liberia in West Africa.Steve Strunsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

This article is part of “Unknown New Jersey,” an ongoing series that highlights interesting and little-known stories about our past, present, and future -- all the unusual things that make our great state what is it. Got a story to pitch? Email it to local@njadvancemedia.com.

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