Edgewater residents breathing in potentially harmful fumes for 9 months

Elevated levels of a chemical that can be harmful to humans and has caused cancer in lab rats has been wafting into the air from the Quanta Superfund site in Edgewater for nine months as workers continue to entomb a century's worth of pollution on the property closely surrounded by homes and businesses.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says there is no public health threat, even though levels of naphthalene have exceeded the site's "risk screening level" on 120 of 135 days that air monitoring has taken place from late May through mid-February, according to reports compiled by Honeywell, the global conglomerate responsible for the cleanup.

Readings have ranged from just slightly above the screening level of 4.62 micrograms per cubic meter to more than 200 times that level on one day in September.

Honeywell has said even the highest readings of naphthalene from Quanta are still “well below the lowest levels known to produce adverse health effects in humans or laboratory animals.”

But an environmental consultant who reviewed the reports last week disagreed.

Dr. Peter deFur, who had been an EPA-funded technical adviser to an Edgewater community group on the Quanta site, said work should be halted until officials can ensure that naphthalene levels will be kept under control.

“It’s a health risk. There is no other way to say it,” he said.

“Somebody’s not watching the store,” said deFur, who has analyzed toxic site cleanups for community groups across the country for over three decades. “The reason they put air monitors there is so when things rise they can take corrective action. This looks like it’s been going on forever.”

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The primary ingredient of mothballs, naphthalene is “reasonably anticipated” to be a human carcinogen after studies showed that lab rats formed lung and nose tumors when breathing in the chemical daily, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The EPA and the World Health Organization classify naphthalene as a possible human carcinogen because of its effects on lab rats.

Exposure to large amounts can also cause vomiting, blood in urine and anemia.

Mothballs containing naphthalene are readily available for purchase in the U.S., but the European Union banned the sale of mothballs and other products containing naphthalene 10 years ago over safety concerns.

In an emailed response to The Record, EPA officials say they have worked with Honeywell to make “every effort ... to minimize the odors during this necessary and important cleanup work.” Workers are spraying an odor-suppressing foam and a clay-based mortar on areas of exposed soil to limit “odor-causing materials" from being released to the air.

“There is no immediate health risk, based on the available data,” Rodriguez said. “However, EPA recognizes that the odor is a nuisance and we are working to minimize it to the extent possible."

But deFur said it’s clear from the reports that those methods aren’t effective. “I’m really surprised [EPA officials] haven’t put a stop-work order in,” he said. “They haven’t looked at the basic cause to see if their plan needs to be readjusted, which is what they’ve done at every place I’ve worked when the air monitors detect a high level.”

Residents have been complaining for months about the fumes from the site, which is undergoing a controversial cleanup that will entomb coal tar, arsenic and oil byproducts at the Hudson River site rather than excavate them, as many residents had wanted. Complaints on social media forums have come from some who live next door to the site and some who live more than half a mile away.

Tina Macica, who lives in a condominium built in recent years just south of the Quanta site, said residents should have been notified directly that the naphthalene levels were high. Macica said she stumbled on the monitoring results while on a website Honeywell made for the Quanta cleanup.

“They should stop the work and reevaluate the risk,” said Macica, who no longer opens the windows of her home because the smell is so bad. “They need to test beyond the site limits to see how far this is spreading.”

In response to the high levels, work has been slowed down at the site or moved to different locations, and workdays have been shortened, said Victoria Streitfeld, a Honeywell spokeswoman. "We are continuing to refine our construction practices and evaluate the latest technologies for odor control," she said.

The first high levels of naphthalene were found on June 6, and they have been consistently above the risk screening level of 4.62 micrograms per cubic meter almost every day into mid-February, the latest available data show.

By September, readings were getting very high. One monitor on the south side of the site recorded 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter — 216 times the screening level — on Sept. 15.

Although naphthalene levels never reached that high again, they still exceeded the standard almost every day — some just slightly above the screening level and others that were very high, such as one on Jan. 31 from a monitor closest to River Road that registered 56 times the standard. The most recent readings continued to show high levels, at 40 to 60 times the screening level from Feb. 13 to 16.

The screening level of 4.62 micrograms per cubic meter was developed from EPA national health standards and tailored to the Quanta site “to be protective of residents and especially sensitive sub-populations, including pregnant women and children,” said Elias Rodriguez, an EPA spokesman.

The New Jersey Department of Health also lists naphthalene as a probable carcinogen and states that there may be no safe level of exposure.

Honeywell and the EPA said the risk is based on the assumption that an individual is located at the perimeter of the Quanta site for 10 hours per day, five days per week, for 1½ years.

Residents say there are plenty of people who would fit that scenario, since condos, apartment units, retail stores, restaurants and offices surround the site, some only 200 feet away. And many say they smell the fumes in the evenings and on weekends, when work has halted.

"Don't tell me these fumes aren't traveling," said Jane Hoffman, who has lived next door to Quanta in the City Place condominium and retail complex for almost two years. "Every day it smells here. It's overwhelming, because I'm basically living next to a tar pit."

None of the 16 other chemicals that the air monitors are testing for have exceeded their screening levels. EPA officials said naphthalene is high because it evaporates into the air easily when contaminated soil at the site is disturbed.

EPA officials said the mortar, called “Posi-Shell,” was adjusted in recent weeks to harden faster as work disturbing the soil at Quanta moved closer to River Road. Disturbed areas are also being covered with plastic sheeting to contain fumes on Fridays, the officials said.

The eight stationary and four mobile air monitors are placed along the perimeter of the site and operate 30 minutes before work begins and one hour after work stops.

“Anytime you go by it, you get hit with that horrible smell,” said Geraldine Meagher, who lives about a mile from the site. “When the bus opens its doors, people turn their heads. The reaction is so immediate.”

The pollution dates back 150 years to when the site was used to process coal tar for roofing. The site became a toxic stew when arsenic produced by a chemical plant next to the site migrated onto the property over a half-century. By the 1970s, the property was used to recycle waste oil, the last operator being Quanta Resources Inc.

Although oil tanks were removed from the site, Quanta languished for decades until it was named a federal Superfund site in 2002 and came under control of the EPA. By then, Edgewater was well on its way to turning from an industrial hub into a high-end bedroom community. Several projects were approved around the Quanta site, including the City Place condominium, retail and hotel complex on its northern border and the new Borough Hall to its south.

Honeywell inherited the liability of the site because it had merged with Allied Chemical, which operated at the Quanta site from 1930 to 1974. Twenty-three other companies are paying for part of the cleanup because their waste oil was disposed at Quanta.

When the EPA unveiled its $78 million cleanup plan in 2011, it was met with criticism by many residents because it leaves most of the pollution in place.

Excavating the toxic material and hauling it away would cost more than $300 million and would be too disruptive to the already congested borough, EPA officials said when they chose the plan.

In fact, one of the reasons the EPA gave against excavation of all 150,000 cubic yards of tainted soil is the quantity of noxious fumes that would be released to the surrounding community of high-end condos, town houses and apartment buildings.

Pollution had spread over the years from the main Quanta site along the Hudson River to the other side of River Road underneath a dilapidated industrial building and a restaurant's parking lot. The buildings were demolished last year.

From her 14th-floor apartment across the street from the Quanta site, Irene Stella has seen the cleanup efforts almost every day. Not everything has gone well, she said.

When the industrial buildings were demolished on the west side of River Road, dust clouds floated down the thoroughfare. “Two guys had garden hoses, as if that would make a difference,” she said.

Stella has smelled the acrid, mothball-like fumes whenever she’s outside. She has seen large pools of oily water form whenever it rains on the site. She has seen the wind blow dust from a large mound of dirt piled up last spring near a woman walking a stroller on River Road.

“I’ve lived a long time already, but I’m worried about babies and the kids in the area,” said the 82-year-old retiree.

The project is scheduled to be completed by mid-2019. The EPA is planning an information session soon in Edgewater on the status of the Quanta site, but a date has not yet been chosen.

Gil Hawkins, environmental director for the Hudson River Fishermen's Association, had spent years urging the EPA to do a more comprehensive cleanup of Quanta, whose pollution has seeped into the river and will be addressed in a second cleanup. Last week he took a trip to the site after hearing of residents’ concerns.

“I’m not an engineer, but I know what I’m smelling,” he said. “What they’re doing could be entirely reasonable, but the smell is not reasonable. Something is wrong there.”