State's study finds Jersey City residents living close to chromium contamination are not at increased risk for three types of cancer

Thursday, December 02, 2010

TRENTON - Jersey City residents who live near chromium-contaminated sites do not face bigger risks than others of contracting three types of cancers, according to study released yesterday by the state.

The health assessment by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services and Department of Environmental Protection tracked residents who lived near 126 chromium-laced sites from 1979 to 2006 and found no increased risks of getting oral, esophageal or stomach cancer.

The DHSS and DEP used New Jersey State Cancer Registry data and information on the chromium waste sites in completing the health assessment, which was a follow-up to a 2008 health study that focused on lung cancer in the community.

All the Jersey City sites contaminated with chromium ore processing residue have undergone at least interim remediation to prevent further direct exposures to residents, and remediation has been completed at 50 of the sites, according a press release.

The study recommends continued site remediation in order to limit human exposure to hexavalent chromium.

Joe Morris, director of the Hudson County-based Interfaith Community Organization, which has pushed for tougher remediation standards, said yesterday that the ICO is still analyzing results of the just-released study.

Last year, the ICO and the National Resources Defense Council petitioned the state to change the remediation standard for chromium in soil from 20 parts per million to one part per million. The state rejected the petition pending further studies.

William Matsikoudis, Jersey City's corporation counsel, said yesterday the latest study was positive news, but added: "We have to continue to work to finally remediate the remaining chromium, which will ensure that Jersey City is safe and also open up many currently blighted areas to positive development."

The 2008 assessment found that lung cancer rates from 1979 to 2003 were higher in areas closest to the historic locations of sites that had been contaminated with chromium.

The health assessment can be found at: www.state.nj.us/health/eoh/ceh ... udson_co_chromium_hc.pdf.

KEN THORBOURNE

Is there a full list of chromium-contaminated sites in Jersey City posted anywhere online? Or can I get this info from City Hall?

Why did Corzine withhold DEP report?
April 23, 2009 ? 6:55 am
By Bob Ingle

http://blogs.app.com/politicspatrol/2009/04/23/3631/

Lisa Jackson
A new NJ Department of Environmental Protection report says our state?s standards are more than 200 times laxer for chromium in the soil than needed to protect health. Chromium in soil is associated with cancer. But hold your cheers for the DEP. The report was finished April 8. The Washington-based Public Employees for Environmental Protection said ?The new risk assessment came to light because of a state public records request filed by Zoe Kelman, a former NJDEP chemical engineer, who resigned in disgust after her warnings about chromium migrating off completed sites and likely coming into direct contact with residents and workers were ignored.? It continues: ?Last week, NJDEP closed public comment on a controversial chromium cleanup settlement for Jersey City sites owned by PPG Industries. This new risk assessment was completed on April 8th but was not given to the community and was released to Ms. Kelman after the April 15th comment deadline passed.?

PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, ?This assessment validates the alarms sounded by Zoe Kelman. Yet, despite repeated wake-up calls on chromium dangers, New Jersey continues on snooze control.?

Kelman said she was removed from chromium-related issues and denied meaningful work by then-DEP Commissioner Lisa Jackson after she voiced concerns. Jackson now heads the federal EPA.

New Jersey sites are contaminated because of old industrial operations. Hexavalent chromium is the substance against which Erin Brockovich campaigned in California.

In 2003, former Sen. Bob Torricelli was appointed by federal Judge Dennis M. Cavanaugh in Newark to oversee an environmental cleanup project in Jersey City. Torricelli is paid by Honeywell International to clean up a 34-acre site contaminated by chromium. The judge?s order also authorizes Torricelli to hire professional and technical personnel who also will be paid by Honeywell. The site was contaminated by a chemical plant that pumped waste into wetlands along the Hackensack River, which Honeywell must also clean.

Chromium: DEP should clean New Jersey's 'chrome coast'

The Star-Ledger Editorial Board
April 27, 2009

In 2004, The Star-Ledger documented how three major companies successfully lobbied the state Department of Environmental Protection over a decade to relax its limits on chromium and delay cleanup of contaminated sites.

By engaging their own scientist and spinning doubt about how much was actually known about chromium's dangers, Honeywell, PPG and Maxus Energy saved about $1 billion in potential cleanup costs.

Hudson County residents have born the brunt of delays in measuring the true extent of contamination.

Three chromium plants operated in the county for about 50 years; the last one closed in 1976. Over the decades, Jersey City residents have seen rainwater pooled on the ground with a green and yellow tinge ("like Mountain Dew," one said), and children playing on ballfields suffered from unexplained rashes.

Hexavalent chromium, the most dangerous form, is a byproduct of a refining process that produces paint pigments and bumper plating, among other things, and has been linked to lung and other cancers for about 80 years. It is the same contaminant that spurred Erin Brockovich into action, helping to win a multi-million dollar suit for residents of a small California town.

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control reported that people who live near the contaminated sites in Hudson County have higher rates of lung cancer. In addition to the risk from inhalation, the National Toxicology Program of the federal Department of Health and Human Services last year confirmed a link between oral ingestion of chromium and cancer.

With the latest evidence in hand, state scientists at DEP's Division of Science, Research and Technology this week concluded the state's current standard for an allowable amount of chromium in the soil of residential areas is 240 times higher than it should be.

Two years ago the state adopted a stricter standard for sites being cleaned up for new schools or homes, where the dirt is churned up by construction. But the new report says even that limit is 20 times too high.

Now DEP acting commissioner Mark Mauriello must decide whether to adopt the more stringent limit, stick with the current rules or come up with a compromise.

It's time for DEP to finally listen to its staff scientists on the issue of chromium. Public health and safety have been compromised for too long.

It's also time for a long-overdue reckoning with DEP's abysmal record on this issue.

Cleanup at one Jersey City site began in 2005 only after the Interfaith Community Organization sued in federal court. In ordering the cleanup, the court blasted DEP: "The evidence demonstrates a substantial breakdown in the agency process that has resulted in 20 years of permanent clean-up inaction."

Joe Morris, the ICO organizer in Jersey City, welcomed the news of a proposed tougher standard for chromium remediation but added, "It took them 23 months too long."

According to Morris, DEP delayed revising its standards while continuing to announce settlements under the old, less rigorous standard. Just this February, it announced a settlement with PPG to clean up chromium contamination at 14 sites in Jersey City, Weehawken and Bayonne within five years.

Mauriello should delay no longer in adopting the tougher standards on chromium.

No doubt that will make cleanups more expensive. But as Nancy Marks of the National Resources Defense Council puts it, "Someone has to bear the cost. Whether it's a health cost, government cost or profits, someone has to pay."

Developers like Josh Wuestneck are watching closely. He is a senior vice-president at Applied Development Co., which does large-scale projects involving brownfields in polluted urban areas that depend on the Honeywells and PPGs of the world to do the right thing and cleanup before developers like himself move in. His company has projects in the Jersey City area -- some completed, others still underway.

"Any change in remediation standards certainly affects redevelopment," he said. "It's the uncertainty that becomes a problem." The concern for developers like Wuestneck is that DEP could reopen settled cases. Some projects had chromium-contaminated soil capped; others had it carted away.

"The paramount issue is protecting public safety," Wuestneck said. "We stay out of the debate about science. That's DEP's job."

And so it is.

Mauriello, in a DEP press release announcing the PPG settlement, said "I grew up in Jersey City and know firsthand the frustration felt by people who have had to live with chromium contamination."

He could do his hometown proud by leading DEP to finally do the right thing.

Any impact on embankment development?

Conflicting videos, one from jc1tv and one from reputable scientist of NJDEP and NJN reporting it.

Video pulled from the http://www.jc1tv.com/ website today after yesterday's NTPStudy news release shows Healy with two E.O.H.S.I Drs.

You won't find it there anymoe...
Well, we cached it. And here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ9VwmrC-2U

Sampling household showed almost all homes had 20 PPM and these two scientist say it's safe for residences?

20 PPM is not even acceptable for Brownfield sites!

The NTP study says 1PPM.

As per yesterdays NJN Exclusive Report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voNP1WdGvoU

Do the right thing for your constituents; Please reject the settlement agreement!

Bergen Record Story on New Chromium Standard
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 8:19 PM
http://www.northjersey.com/environmen ... _too_lax_.html?c=y&page=1

Star Ledger Story on New Chromium Standard
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 8:36 PM
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009 ... sts_say_allowable_st.html

welcome to society hills, happy living!

Chromium report may rock rules

Wednesday, April 22, 2009
By BRIAN T. MURRAY
THE STAR-LEDGER

New Jersey scientists have concluded in a new report the state's allowable standard for an industrial, cancer-causing pollutant is far too high - a finding that may impact urban redevelopment and chromium cleanups in Hudson County.

The state Division of Science, Research and Technology contends the levels of hexavalent chromium the state currently considers acceptable for the soil of residential communities is 240 times higher than what it should be.

The conclusion is based on a link between oral ingestion of the contaminant and cancer in humans confirmed in a 2008 study by the National Toxicology Program of the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Human exposure to smaller amounts of hexavalent chromium is more risky than previously acknowledged, according to the findings.

If it is adopted, this 50-page "risk assessment" could complicate efforts to redevelop chromium-polluted areas along Hudson County's "Gold Coast" overlooking New York City and impact negotiated cleanups at an estimated 200 chromium-polluted sites in Hudson and parts of Essex counties.

The new standard may mean contaminated soil must be removed, not simply capped or contained, and force a review of areas previously not considered contaminated.

"This is explosive. The report has been peer-reviewed already by the (federal) Environmental Protection Agency and everyone else. The state now must take the data and turn it into a regulation-because if they don't, they know they are not protecting the public," said Nancy Marks, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which filed a federal lawsuit to compel a cleanup on one Jersey City site.

DEP spokeswoman Elaine Makatura said DEP Commissioner Mark Mauriello would now review the report's recommendations.