FORMER  DEP  COMMISSIONER  NOMINATED  FOR  USEPA  CHIEF

Former NJDEP Commissioner Ms. Lisa Jackson had been nominated for the position of USEPA Administrator.  President-Elect Barack Obama announced the nomination

on December 15, 2008.

According to Mr. Bill Roach, the USEPA’s representative to the RAB, her appointment was confirmed on 1/23/2009. The former Commissioner was in charge at the NJDEP until October 2008 when she accepted the position of

Chief of Staff for New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. 

Ms. Jackson assumed the role of Chief of Staff on December 1, 2008. In her stead at NJDEP, Governor Corzine appointed Mr. Mark N. Mauriello on

November 18, 2008.  The Governor’s press release noted that commissioner Mauriello is a 28-year veteran of the NJDEP and most recently served as Assistant Commissioner for Land Use Management.

Building 1071 was subsequently removed in March 2004.  One post-excavation sample

was analyzed for SVOCs, explosives and metals.  Exceedances of RDX (49,000 mg/kg), HMX (14,000 mg/kg), tetryl (12,000 mg/kg and lead (3,120 mg/kg) resulted in a second excavation of the sump area.  Soil was removed to bedrock, 13.5 to 14 ft. bgs.  The concrete sump was demolished and disposed of as non-hazardous construction debris at a municipal landfill.  The steel reinforcing bars and cover plates were returned to the Picatinny DPW for salvage as scrap metal.  The excavated soil was relocated to the 3500 area for reuse as fill under a proposed new building [emphasis added].  The excavation was filled with certified clean soil from the Berm 35 source.  Six surface soil samples were collected in the area of Building 1071 to investigate these AOCs.”

EPA considers the re-use of this soil with high explosive levels to be unacceptable and requests that the Army verify that this soil was actually used as fill in the 3500 area.  If re-use of this soil actually did occur, then it raises doubt about the validity of the soil clearance program. “ Refer to comment 21.

Michael Glaab comments : “…  the RAB has consistently expressed a preference for remedial actions which directly act to redress contamination either by expeditiously removing  contaminants and safely transporting  them offsite to appropriate

certified facilities or by safely decomposing the contaminants onsite into relatively harmless components. There are additional uncertainties inherent in relying on such relatively passive and indirect measures as monitored natural attenuation ( MNA). MNA essentially  involves permitting the environment to naturally — and often slowly - decompose contaminants over time. This entails the tacit assumption that an exact enough perception of the environment can be established to first permit accurate quantification of relevant factors and that realistic mathematical models can subsequently be created for use in devising a remedial action. In point of fact this tacit assumption is an uncertainty and therefore a risk. For example, due to the difficulty of exactly calculating the amount of time required for safe attenuation many determinative  factors such as soil density and porosity; underground water flow rates, water flow vectors and etc. - which do not always lend themselves to easy determination or quantification - can potentially loom large in determining the effectiveness of a remedial action. Unaccounted for factors such as unexpected and unobserved soil deposits, undetected ground fissures, soil subsidences, unrecorded waste deposits, tectonic activity and etc. can potentially so skew problematic factors that the calculations on which the assumptions of a model were based become unrealistic and thus can perhaps contribute to the

failure of a sincerely initiated

environmental remediation effort based on that model. Our restoration advisory board has been exposed  to sufficient site plans, graphs, charts, topographic maps, hydrological water flow and contaminant concentration gradient maps, risk tables, soil and water test sample data tables, risk calculations, mathematical analyses, computer modeling  and technical appraisals for us to appreciate that many calculations are problematic and subject to uncertainty. The longer is the time duration of a remediation action the greater is the possibility that an unanticipated or perhaps just inaccurately anticipated factor will arise that will reduce the effectiveness of that remediation action. Accordingly, those remediation actions that require less time to be completed tend to also involve less risk due to the uncertainty posed by time. Therefore, remediation actions that involve either the immediate removal or the immediate decomposition and treatment of contaminants tend to be favored by many board members: for example, the direct and relatively quick decomposition of contaminants onsite with suitable treatment materials or the prompt excavation of contaminated soil which is either treated and carefully disposed at the Arsenal or completely and safely removed from Picatinny to a proper storage location elsewhere.”   

USEPA COMMENTS ON PICA 001 FS (CONT’D)