News Coverage
Editorial: Healing a river
IT HAS TAKEN far too long and progress will be extremely slow, but dredging will finally begin in the Passaic River. The battle to save it has taken decades. That's why any celebration of this victory is marred by the fact that the river has been abused and neglected for more than half a century.
An agreement announced last week between the federal government and the river's polluters authorizes an $80 million cleanup of the most poisoned section, an 8-mile stretch that empties into Newark Bay. The waters are so tainted by dioxin that eating one crab from the river can raise a person's cancer risk for life.
The Passaic River's story is one of the worst chapters in New Jersey's environmentally notorious history. The river and its watershed are the birthplace of America's industrial revolution, and it should have been treated with far more respect.
Instead, the river was awarded a place on the list of Superfund sites and has long been considered one of the most polluted in America, due mainly to the dumping of dioxin in the 1950s and 1960s. The chemical was used in the manufacture of Agent Orange by the Diamond Shamrock factory in Newark. PCBs, mercury and raw sewage have also contaminated the waters. Huge amounts of trash have been dumped in it as well.
The initial dioxin pollution was horrendous enough. But even after the poisons settled in sediment on the river bottom, devastating the environment and causing a major health hazard, nothing was done to clean it up. Some of the river's strongest advocates have devoted long years to fighting for it, and they deserve much credit for the dredging plan. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, has also played a large role.
The cleanup entails the removal of a total of 200,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from the lower Passaic River area where the former factory once operated. The first phase, which will take more than two years, will remove 40,000 cubic yards of the most toxic mud.
At a news conference last week, Alan Steinberg, the regional administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said, "Today the long era of environmental devastation of the Passaic River is over. A new era of environmental restoration of the Passaic River begins."
Those closest to the fight to save the river - politicians, activists and citizens - know the long and frustrating story behind those words, and how much energy, disappointment and determination it took to reach this point.
They also know this is only the first step in an effort to clean up the entire river that will likely take several more decades.
New Jersey has a shameful history of mistreating many of its rivers, depriving them of their natural beauty and purity, and turning them into toxic stews that spread poison and death.
A new chapter is finally being written in the life of the Passaic, and many people, including the members of the Passaic River Coalition, have a vision of what the river could be, despite its present diseased condition. For example, the Lower Passaic Watershed Alliance, a business, community and government partnership, wants to create a 32-mile canoe and kayak trail on the river. It would consist of boat ramps, docks and beachheads at almost two dozen points between Lincoln Park and Newark Bay. That would make the river user-friendly for the first time in ages.
The dredging plan brings all such heartfelt hopes for the river's future a little closer to reality.