Good news for toxic cleanup along Raritan Bay in Old Bridge
The cleanup of the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site will receive an estimated $1 million grant to complete work on the seawall in the Laurence Harbor section of Old Bridge.
The site is among the more than 100 across the country getting more than $1 billion for cleanup projects as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The funding comes from the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and will launch new cleanup projects at 25 Superfund sites and continue cleanups at more than 85 others, the EPA said.
The other New Jersey Superfund projects included are the Matlack site in Woolwich and the Roebling Steel site in Florence.
More: NJ has the most Superfund sites in the country. What to know if you live near one
"This announcement is a step in the right direction so that the Old Bridge community can use the space without fear of the health risks that come with living near a Superfund site," U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., said in a press release. "... I'll continue to fight to ensure that corporate polluters are held accountable for the contamination they create and that New Jersey receives the resources it needs to clean up these sites.”
The site is adjacent to Old Bridge’s planned beachfront community center.
In 2021, the EPA announced plans to take over the design of plans to clean up the 1.5-mile Superfund site on the Old Bridge and Sayreville border.
A portion of the Laurence Harbor beachfront has been closed for years because of lead contamination. The seawall and the jetty were constructed in the 1970s with slag, an industrial byproduct containing lead, manufactured at the Perth Amboy factory of National Lead, now NL Industries.
In 2007, the state Department of Environmental Protect discovered contamination along the seawall and notified the EPA in June 2008. Six years later, the EPA ordered NL Industries to remediate the site, based on the finding that the company had manufactured the slag that was causing the contamination.
Email: sloyer@gannettnj.com
Susan Loyer covers Middlesex County and more for MyCentralJersey.com. To get unlimited access to her work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: New Jersey Superfund site on Raritan Bay gets $1M cleanup grant
