(The Cherry Hill Courier-Post placed the following article by Richard Pearsall on its website on December 11.)
NEWARK, N.J. — NJ Transit’s board of directors on Wednesday approved a contract to take contaminated dirt from East Camden to a quarry in Pennsylvania that does not have approval to accept it.
The dirt, excavated during construction of the 34-mile South Jersey light rail line, contains low levels of such hazardous substances as arsenic, lead, PCBs and volatile organic compounds.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection last week withdrew permission to dump the dirt at a sand and gravel pit in lower Bucks County pending more testing.
Karl Lasher, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania DEP, said Wednesday that its testing is not yet complete and, until it is, “that quarry is closed to the dirt.”
Lynn Bowersox, a spokeswoman for NJ Transit, said her agency is confident Pennsylvania will restore permission before Conti Enterprises, the South Plainfield firm that won the contract, begins hauling the dirt out of East Camden in January.
While putting the trucking portion of the project out for bid, NJ Transit arranged for a disposal facility – and a broker or middleman – on its own.
About $1.8 million of the $3.8 million contract awarded Wednesday will go to the Penn Valley Quarry in Falls Township, Pa., and its broker, Beneficial Soil Solutions of Chesapeake, Md.
NJ Transit secured the disposal contract without bidding because “we needed to have an agreement with a facility” that had a permit, Bowersox said.
Quotes from other facilities and brokers were solicited, according to Steve Santoro, chief of New Light Rail Construction for NJ Transit, but none matched the combination of price and proximity that Penn Valley and Beneficial offered.
A permit was issued for Penn Valley based on claims the dirt is “clean fill,” said Lasher, the Pennsylvania DEP spokesman.
Limits on hazardous substance levels are tougher for sand and gravel pits than landfills because of potential contact with ground water, Lasher said.
“That’s our concern,” said Wayne Bergman, the township manager in Falls Township, who noted that excavation at the quarry has created a lake. “There are some people still on wells in the area.”
NJ Transit dumped about 5,000 tons of dirt in the quarry before the Pennsylvania DEP withdrew its permit.
Earlier this year, NJ Transit arranged to have the first 40,000 cubic yards of dirt in Camden and another 26,000 yards in Florence trucked to Staten Island.
The agency, then and now, cited the “exigency clause” in its bylaws as the reason for not putting the work out to bid.
Normally goods or services in excess of $25,000 are put out to public bid.