Kin-Buc Landfill
Encyclopedia
Superfund
Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 , a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances...
site located in Edison, New Jersey
Edison, New Jersey
Edison Township is a township in Middlesex County, New Jersey. What is now Edison Township was originally incorporated as Raritan Township by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1870, from portions of both Piscataway Township and Woodbridge Township...
where 70 million USgals (264,978.8 m³) of liquid toxic waste and 1 million tons of solid waste were dumped. It was active from the late 1940s to 1976. Cleanup operations have been underway to address environmental issues with contamination from 1980s through to 2000s. This site was one of the largest superfund sites in New Jersey having taken in around 90 million USgals (340,687.1 m³). The site is heavily contaminated with PCB
Polychlorinated biphenyl
Polychlorinated biphenyls are a class of organic compounds with 2 to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl, which is a molecule composed of two benzene rings. The chemical formula for PCBs is C12H10-xClx...
s, which leaked into Edmonds Creek, a tributary of Raritan River
Raritan River
The Raritan River is a major river of central New Jersey in the United States. Its watershed drains much of the mountainous area of the central part of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay on the Atlantic Ocean.-Description:...
.
History
From around 1947 the site was used for dumping of municipal, industrial and hazardous waste.From 1971 to 1976 the site was state approved for liquid and solid wastes but the state approval was revoked in 1976 due to violations of state and federal environmental laws. Large quantities of PCBs were dumped without proper containment, and PCBs consequently leaked into Edmonds Creek, a tributary of Raritan River
Raritan River
The Raritan River is a major river of central New Jersey in the United States. Its watershed drains much of the mountainous area of the central part of the state, emptying into the Raritan Bay on the Atlantic Ocean.-Description:...
.
By 1979 legal action had been launched and in 1980 as part of the settlement between Kin-Buc Ltd. and the United States Environmental Protection Agency
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress...
(USEPA) began clean-up operations with large amounts of waste shipped off site and incinerated between 1984 and 1994. There have been several phases of clean-up undertaken and later reviews of progress (1999-2000 and 2004).
In 2005 a legal agreement was reached in which USD$2.6million to pay for some of the ongoing cleanup as well as other actions to help cleanup the pollution at the site.