The Herald News
November 30, 2000

STUDY OF PASSAIC RIVER WINS FUNDING
By Donna Knipp

Cities around the country are cleaning up their waterfronts, and now towns along the Passaic River may get their turn.  Riverside dining, cruise boats packed with tourists, and homes lining the river banks could be part of the waterway’s future. 

At the moment, however, the lower Passaic, which runs 17 miles from Dundee Dam (near Passaic City) to Newark Bay, is one of the most polluted, old-industrial waterways in the country.

Changing that would likely take many years and many hundred of millions of dollars, environmentalists say, but a group of congressmen and local leaders has sponsored a study that will look for ways to begin the transformation.

Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, and Robert Menendez, D-Union City, along with former Rep. Robert A. Roe, announced at a press conference Wednesday that Congress has funded the study with a $100,000 appropriation.

Representatives from Newark Mayor Sharpe James’s office, the U.S. Army Core of Engineers, and the state’s Office of Maritime Resources were there as well.

“The mighty Passaic River comes to the Great Falls in Paterson,” said Pascrell. “The site reminds me of the power and strength and possibilities of rivers… Paterson was powered by the force of that river.”

Pascrell said cleaning up the river and its watershed, where some two million people live, should be a top priority.  “This is the key to our future.  The time has come for a comprehensive look at pollution in the Passaic River.”

The one year study will include both th lower Passaic and river’s upper reaches, which extend through Morris and Sussex counties, and northern portions of Passaic County, where landscapes are suburban and rural.  Core samples will be taken and assignments made of spotty, earlier cleanup efforts, said Rick Gimello, director of the state Office of Maritime Resources.

The study will be performed by the Army Corps of Engineers, and could lead to another, larger and sometimes requires inventiveness and patience.

“Dredging can cause its own problems.  Sometimes when you dredge, you don’t take everything out, and you stir up what’s left.  So chemicals right now are trapped could get stirred up and dispersed in the water,” Tittel said.

Tittel said alternative cleanup methods include using special chemicals that adhere to contaminants, which are then removed, and redirecting the river into side channels so that the riverbed may be safely dredged.  Whatever course is selected, Tittel said cleanup would likely cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take more than a decade to complete.  “Rivers are a wonderful place for people.  People like to be near the water, to walk or to bike.  Its about time they did this,” he said.