Cleanup nears end for Pompton Lake, a regional backup water supply contaminated by DuPont

Dump trucks loaded with sand have started to roll into Pompton Lakes for the final phase of a controversial cleanup of a contaminated lake that serves as a backup drinking water supply for North Jersey.

The three-year, $50 million project was designed to remove sediment from Pompton Lake that had been contaminated with mercury and lead from a former DuPont munitions facility nearby.

A dredging operation that started in 2016 continued through last summer to remove sediment from 36 acres of the 200-acre lake. This spring and summer, workers will spread a layer of clean sand over the dredged area to serve as a new habitat for aquatic life, and will restore vegetation to the lake shoreline.

The project has drawn controversy because residents complained that a more thorough cleanup of the entire lake bottom should have been performed, and questions have been raised about whether the 6-inch layer of new sand will be thick enough to protect wildlife from any residual contamination.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency wanted the sediment removed because a toxic form of mercury can build up in fish, posing a health risk to humans who eat them. Exposure to mercury can damage nervous systems and harm the brain, heart, kidneys, lungs and immune system.

The lake is used by residents for skiing, boating and fishing, but it is so contaminated that fishermen are warned not to eat their catch.

Backup reservoir source

Pompton Lake is also a backup source to replenish a key reservoir that supplies drinking water to towns in Bergen and Passaic counties.

“I hate when people call it a cleanup, because it’s not,” resident Regina Sisco said of the project. “I’m happy they’re addressing 36 acres of the lake, but what’s happening to the rest of the sediment? It’s a 200-acre lake. That’s really not a cleanup.”

Sisco said the dredging project seemed like a waste of money, since significant contamination remains on the former DuPont property — the original source of the lake pollution.

“Who’s to say it’s not going to get recontaminated?” said Sisco, executive director of Pompton Lakes Residents for Environmental Integrity, an advocacy group.

George Popov, a 30-year resident who lives near the lake, agreed.

“This should be far from the final phase of the project, because they’ve left most of the pollution in the lake,” he said.

Does cleanup go far enough?

Regulators said a series of tests showed low levels of mercury in the rest of the lake sediment.

Another issue is the thickness of the sandy layer being placed over the dredged area.

A base layer will be about 2 inches thick and an upper layer will be 4 inches thick, said Tayler Covington, a spokeswoman for the EPA, which is overseeing the work. The sand will come from the Tilcon Quarry in Mount Hope. Chemours, a DuPont spinoff company responsible for the cleanup, has hired Sevenson Environmental Services to manage the project.

About 43,000 cubic yards of material — or 3,500 dump trucks’ worth — will be spread over the lake bottom.

For the most part, the sand will be pumped through a pipeline to reach the dredged areas. Workers will deposit the sand in a way to minimize suspending any of the remaining sediment, Covington said.

The project covers the most contaminated 36 acres of the 200-acre lake. Residents had pushed, unsuccessfully, for a far more comprehensive cleanup.

During a public comment period on the project in 2014, another federal agency, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the new layer of sand should be a foot thick, not the 6 inches that will be installed.

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Fish and Wildlife had argued for the thicker cap because it said any contaminants remaining in sediment that had not been dredged could move up through the sand layer by way of the water that fills the spaces between the grains of sand.  

Popov said species of fish that live in the lake, including bass and perch, swim in a circular pattern to create funnel-shaped holes to lay their eggs each spring, and those holes can be as deep as 14 inches.

“And any boat anchor could remove that cap,” he added. “The current that flows through the lake after spring thaws and any storm — there’s no way to guarantee the cap will be sustained there until vegetation grows in, and that will take years. It’s a farce. They’re continuing to screw the people of Pompton Lakes.”

The EPA calls the layer of sand an “ecological layer.”

The purpose of the layer, the agency said in an email, “is not to serve as a barrier/cap to cover contaminated-sediment in-place, but to encourage the re-establishment of the (lake) bottom’s ecological community. The 6-inch ecological layer is expected to serve its intended purpose.”

New plantings, sidewalk

Chemours also emphasized that the layer of sand is not intended to be a cap on pollution, since the contaminated sediment was already dredged beforehand.

“Biological scientists, who were members of the remedy design team, concluded that a 6-inch sand layer is appropriate for ecological community recolonization,” Robin Ollis-Stemple, a Chemours spokeswoman, said in an email. 

The start of the final phase of the cleanup drew praise from Pompton Lakes council President Terri Reicher.

“With the onset of spring, we were thrilled to see the heavy equipment from Sevenson Company back in the lake continuing to deal with the final phase of the lake cleanup,” Reicher said in an email. She did not comment on the controversy about the thickness of the sand layer to be put on the lake bottom.

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Council member Frank Jaconetta said he is pleased the project has progressed, but worries that the layer of sand is not thick enough.

“It has been a challenge, and it’s good to see the project is finally coming to fruition,” Jaconetta said. “That’s promising — at least one project is getting done.

"But the thin layer of sand is a concern. I’d hate to see a project like this five years out and we realize they should have put a 12-inch layer of sand down. I’d rather they do it right once. Time will tell.”

Workers will also spend the summer adding plant species that had been destroyed during the cleanup along the lake shore.

“Work is already underway, and residents will soon see improvements to lake access and a new sidewalk and pedestrian crossing along Lakeside Avenue,” Ollis-Stemple said. “Invasive vegetation species will be eliminated and replaced by ornamental landscaping which includes native species plantings in and around Rotary Park and the woodlands. We expect this work will be completed by early fall.”

Last summer, about 30 to 40 dump trucks a day left the site with contaminated sediment, headed for a landfill in Pennsylvania.  

The 130,000 cubic yards of sediment dredged from the lake bed — about 10,600 dump trucks’ worth — was laced with mercury, lead and other contaminants that were dumped into the lake by Acid Brook, which carried the contaminants from a former DuPont munitions plant nearby.

The removal of the lake's contaminated sediment was delayed for several years as the EPA and DuPont clashed over how much sediment the company should remove.

DuPont contamination 

A recent investigative series by The Record and NorthJersey.com examined the 40-year history of DuPont pollution in the borough, and the company's pattern of pushing back against state and federal regulators about cleaning up various pollution from the munitions facility, as well as its repeated efforts to downplay the extent of the pollution and the potential health dangers to the public.

Pompton Lakes Mayor Michael Serra, upset about the negative image he thinks the series has given the borough, will no longer speak to The Record about the DuPont site. “No comment,” he said when asked about the final phase of the lake cleanup.

The former DuPont facility, which lies in Pompton Lakes and Wanaque, operated from 1902 to 1994, making blasting caps, metal wires and aluminum and copper ammunition shells the United States used in the two world wars and other military conflicts.

Contamination from the DuPont facility has been extensive and has come in many forms.

The cancer-causing solvents TCE and PCE migrated off the DuPont site over many decades, ending up beneath a neighborhood of 400 homes. After seven years of prodding from regulators, DuPont tests conducted in 2008 confirmed that the solvents were vaporizing up through the soil and into basements, posing a health risk to residents.

DuPont installed vapor mitigation systems on about 330 homes, but the plume of contamination remains beneath the homes, unaddressed.

Chemours has proposed a controversial pilot study to pump clean water into the ground in the plume area. The water would not remove the solvents, but theoretically would act as a buffer to prevent more vapors from entering homes.

Residents worry that the plan would raise the water table and send contaminated water into their homes. The state is still reviewing whether to approve the plan.