The state Department of Environmental Protection has egg on its face that isn't going to be washed off anytime soon. After years of ignoring suspected illegal dumping of contaminated soil in a Vernon residential neighborhood, the DEP claimed last year ...

The state Department of Environmental Protection has egg on its face that isn't going to be washed off anytime soon.

After years of ignoring suspected illegal dumping of contaminated soil in a Vernon residential neighborhood, the DEP claimed last year that analytics provided by property owner Joseph Wallace -- coupled with visual inspections and the use of a photoionization gas detector at Wallace's 75-foot high dirt pile -- all supported the DEP's contention that there was no cause for concern and no presence of volatile organic compounds or other petroleum-based products in the dirt.

Not until last month did the DEP finally conduct actual laboratory testing of the dirt pile's contents, which the DEP now admits have been found to be harboring unsafe levels of cancer-causing contaminants.

The DEP, facing growing pressure from the residents and mayor of Vernon and from state and federal officials, now accuses Wallace of failing to provide analytics that a judge ordered him to turn over last month -- the same analytics that a DEP spokesperson suggested last year showed no problem at all.

If so, what exactly was the DEP referring to?

And now that volatile organic compounds -- the same ones that didn't show up during last year's supposed testing by photoionization detector -- have been confirmed by last month's testing to be present in the soil, is it unreasonable to question if the photoionization test was ever actually carried out in the first place?

U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who has been pushing for DEP testing of the site, said he was further told by DEP personnel on April 9 that standard soil testing confirmed an elevated concentration of lead but that there was no cause for immediate alarm.

Only later did he learn from published newspaper reports, including one in Sunday's edition of the New Jersey Herald, that tests "confirmed the presence of volatile organic compounds, PCBs and pesticides more than six times the allowable residential standard."

In an April 14 letter to Gov. Phil Murphy, Gottheimer writes, "Surprisingly, we did not receive a single briefing from the DEP or other state agencies when they discovered these carcinogens."

Gottheimer's letter goes on to state that he was told Wallace would be responsible for the testing and that a report would not be forthcoming for at least four months.

Consequently, Gottheimer has requested an immediate briefing by the DEP open to Vernon residents and elected officials, more extensive sampling of Mount Dumpmore at all depths, and an investigation into the process that the DEP uses when testing and classifying sites and ultimately reporting its findings to the public.

Wallace's dirt dump sits atop an aquifer that serves many wells in the area and also is within the Highlands Preservation Area established to protect the underground source of drinking water for millions of New Jersey residents downstate. How the DEP took so long to investigate is unfathomable!

State legislators Sen. Steven Oroho and Assemblymen Parker Space and Hal Wirths expressed their concerns with the most recent findings in a joint statement:

"Unfortunately, our worst fears were realized with the news that cancer-causing contaminants were discovered in soil samples taken from the massive dirt pile on Mr. Wallace's property. It is now increasingly incumbent upon the NJDEP to be very clear with the community on how they plan to proceed in order to protect the public's health."

And to move quickly to be able to clean off some of that egg.