Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
was disturbed by extensive development, drainage, diking,
filling, garbage dumps, and sewage. Wetlands were consid-
ered useless and were polluted with industrial wastes, cov-
ered by asphalt, and used as legal and illegal waste dumps.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, it was subject to uncontrolled
dumping of millions of tons of garbage at 24 dumps covering
2,500 acres. Since no distinction was made between house-
hold waste and hazardous waste, all sorts of toxic materials
including paint, petroleum, chemical, plastics, and pharma-
ceutical wastes were mixed with the garbage. This history has
left hotspots of chromium, PCBs, mercury, and many other
contaminants throughout the area. The river also received
pig waste from rendering plants, and effluent from 13 sew-
age plants which, until the late 1960s, was mostly untreated.
Most people considered the area an unpleasant wasteland.
It has seven Superfund sites including Berry's Creek, one of
the most mercury-contaminated sites in the nation. Just adja-
cent to the district is the lower Passaic River, one of the most
dioxin-contaminated sites in the country.
The turnaround began in 1969 with the formation of the
Hackensack Meadows Development Commission (HMDC) by
an act of the New Jersey legislature to provide for the reclama-
tion, planned development, and redevelopment of the area. The
commission was responsible for waste management, develop-
ment, and conservation, which are at best difficult to balance.
They closed down and capped unregulated landfills, in some
cases leaving toxic contaminants under a layer of dirt, so that
leachate continues to ooze out into the river. They decreased
illegal dumping, prohibited dumping of New York garbage,
and cleaned up remaining landfills; all of these actions
reduced the release of contaminants into the air and ooz-
ing into the river and wetlands. The federal Clean Water Act
stimulated municipalities to upgrade and build effective sew-
age treatment plants that greatly reduced wastes coming into
the water. Changes in the economic base also helped improve
the environmental quality as polluting industries closed and
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