US Sen Torricelli:
Replenish Radioactive Cleanup Fund

AP 2jul02

CAMDEN, NJ -- Standing before a fenced site where radioactive thorium has been found, U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli called for Congress to reinstate a tax on businesses to clean up such sites.

Otherwise, the Democratic senator said Tuesday, some sites may never be cleaned.

"The city of Camden will live with this land being unproductive," Torricelli said.

Torricelli spoke a day after the release of an Environmental Protection Agency report that listed 33 Superfund sites in 18 states where cleanup work is being curtailed or halted because the cleanup fund is nearly depleted.

Five are in New Jersey: Burnt Fly Bog in Marlboro Township, Chemical Insecticide Corp. in Edison Township, Combe Fill South Landfill in Chester Township, Montgomery Township Housing Development in Montgomery Township, and Rocky Hill Municipal Well in Rocky Hill.

The report said five other projects in New Jersey are receiving less than what EPA regional offices had requested. They are Federal Creosote in Manville, Roebling Steel Co. in Florence, U.S. Radium Corp. in Orange, Vineland Chemical Co. in Vineland, and Welsbach & General Gas Mantle in Camden.

Torricelli visited the Welsbach & General Gas Mantle site along with several local officials.

The regional EPA office for New Jersey had asked for $12 million this year to work on the Camden site, but the EPA allocated $7 million, according to the inspector general report.

The site, in the Waterfront South neighborhood where there's a mix of heavy industry and homes, is named for two Camden-area companies that produced gas mantles from the late 1890s to 1941.

The companies used thorium, a radioactive material, in the manufacturing process. Four residential areas in Camden and Gloucester Counties exhibit elevated levels of radiation in soil taken away from the site, according to the EPA.

The site was approved for the Superfund list in 1996. The EPA began a cleanup project that included excavation and removal of 43,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and waste materials on residential and industrial properties in Camden and Gloucester City, as well as the demolition of the General Gas Mantle building in Camden.

Camden officials said if the site could be remediated, a nearby company would build a warehouse on it. And once nearby hot spots could be identified, a row of mostly abandoned row houses could be demolished.

Torricelli was critical of a Bush administration plan that would require taxpayer dollars instead of industry to assume more cleanup costs at these sites.

Democrats argued for reinstatement of the Superfund tax, levied on oil and chemical companies, to replenish the fund used to clean up "orphan" sites like the Welsbach & General Gas Mantle sites, where those who committed the pollution are either out of business or can't be found.

In congressional testimony earlier this year, EPA Administrator Christie Whitman called the tax unfair because it applied to "everyone in an industry, so that even those that have the best of environmental records are also paying."

New Jersey's other senator, Democrat Jon Corzine, said he brought up the issue with EPA Regional Administrator Jane Kenny during a helicopter tour Tuesday of the New Jersey coast.

Corzine said Kenny, who was a top aide to Whitman when she served as New Jersey governor, reiterated the EPA's position that the study did not accurately portray Bush administration policy.

But Corzine said he told Kenny that "the public is pretty outraged, and it's going to be a big political issue."