Location: Central New Jersey

Regulatory Program:

Duration: 2001 to Present

Summary: Provide technical support to a New York based consulting firm at an active manufacturing   site adjacent to a high-profile Superfund site.  Review and provide technical comment on work   scope, conduct field oversight of contractors during drilling activities, implement approved   Health and Safety Plan.

Princeton Geoscience provides technical support to another consulting firm during offsite investigations at a major central New Jersey Superfund site.   Specific activities to date have included reviewing and providing technical comments on project work plans and oversight of field activities performed to delineate the offsite extent of pesticide compounds in subsurface soil.

Although the delineation work is being performed by the parties responsible for remediation of the Superfund site, a goal of Princeton Geoscience and its client is to ensure that work is completed in such a way that further evaluation would not be required for this issue under New Jersey’s Industrial Site Recovery Act, should the property owner decide to sell the facility.  Direct-push and hollow-stem auger drilling equipment has been used to advance over 60 borings to bedrock.  Borings were biased toward former locations of several swales that historically conducted runoff away from the Superfund site land parcel, prior to site development in the late 1970s.  The swales were in some areas removed and in others buried during development of the offsite property, and their historical locations were determined based upon interpretation of historical aerial photographs and topographic maps.

In addition, the offsite property on which the work is being performed is an active facility.  Therefore, another challenge has been to ensure that investigative activities performed adequately achieve the delineation objectives while preventing any actual or perceived exposures to workers, the public or the environment at the facility.  This has involved thorough monitoring of the contractor’s compliance with the approved Health and Safety Plan.  Important aspects of the health and safety program have included performing geophysical surveys to locate numerous subsurface utilities prior to drilling, enforcement of work zones, and conducting air monitoring to prevent exposure to dust and organic vapors which might result from the drilling operations.

The Superfund site responsible parties are currently designing and implementing a soil removal action to remediate contaminants on both the offsite property and the neighboring Superfund site.  This work will collectively involve excavation and offsite disposal of over 100,000 cubic yards of pesticide-contaminated soil.  Due to the intrusive nature of the work, significant planning, air monitoring and countermeasures have been developed to prevent dust and/or vapor migration from the work area and to ensure health and safety of workers, neighboring people and the surrounding environment.