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 Campaigns > Local Action > New Jersey
New Jersey
Montgomery Township
Elementary and Middle PTA Presidents representing Village School succeeded in postponing the remediation and demolition of condemned buildings, which surround their local elementary school. Their primary concern is the presence of asbestos-covered pipes in the buildings, a coal ash landfill, and “miscellaneous” disposal areas and underground storage tanks on the site. The work will now begin after school lets out for the summer, and will end before school resumes in the fall. This victory provides more time for parents to continue to organize to secure a full site cleanup. CHEJ has provided ongoing organizing advice and assistance over the phone on numerous occasions.
Delaware River
The Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the Chemical Weapons Working Group, based in Kentucky; Pennsylvania Clean Water Action; the Delaware and New Jersey Audubon Societies, and the New Jersey Environmental Federation continue their long battle to stop the Army from dumping chemical weapons waste into the Delaware River. The groups have filed a lawsuit to force the Army to complete an environmental impact statement before they can proceed. According to the Army, EPA has determined that the dumping would not harm the river’s plant or animal life; however, the weapon, VX, in its original form is so deadly that a single drop can kill a person in minutes. The proposed dumping site, near the Delaware Memorial Bridge, is 30 miles upriver of the Delaware Bay’s oyster beds.
Clifton
Parents are organizing to secure the safest school site possible for construction of a new junior high and high school. According to local residents, the Clifton Board of Education owns clean land in a neighborhood that could be used as the school site. However, residents of that neighborhood, as well as the mayor and other city officials, want to put the new school on a former steel factory site instead, so that the clean land can remain parkland, despite stories of illegal dumping of waste on the factory site when the steel plant was still in operation. Parents are organizing to generate public support to convince the School Board to choose the clean site.
Ocean City
Parents are getting organized in response to alarming health effects from a school built atop a 1920’s asphalt plant. Five teachers at the school, who all taught in the same kindergarten classroom, have been diagnosed with cancer. Three of them have since died. School officials shut down that wing of the school and relocated students to other classrooms in the building. Indoor air tests taken from the abandoned areas showed little contamination according to the school officials. But CHEJ’s Science Director reviewed the report and found the testing inadequate and recommended additional testing be done including soil testing. Concerned parents are continuing to get organized with support from CHEJ.
Dover Township
Residents are working together to block Frontier Fuel’s proposed junk-to-ethanol plant at the Ocean County Remanufacturing Center. The proposed plant would convert tires and wood chips into ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, which would then be trucked from the site and blended with gasoline. Many residents are concerned about the safety of the plant, which would be the first waste-to-ethanol facility Fuel Frontiers has ever constructed. “I love this area, and I love this town, but you would think we’d have learned our lesson by now when it comes to something like this,” said one concerned resident.
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