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Superfund site in EHT set to become solar farm

NICHOLAS HUBA, Staff Writer
Mar 31, 2016

Site grading is seen at Price's Pit Superfund site in Egg Harbor Township, Wednesday July 16, 2016. Construction
on a cap over the site that will ultimately resolve decades of leaching chemicals begins this week.

Michael Ein

NICHOLAS HUBA, Staff Writer

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GG HARBOR TOWNSHIP — After years of remediation for chemical

E
contamination, Price’s Pit is set to become home to a solar farm following an
agreement between the developer of the project and the township.

Under the agreement, the township will not foreclose on the property, while Absecon-
based Dewey Place LLC, the developer for the project, will pay back more than
$290,000 in back taxes and interest.

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South Jersey has its fair share of Superfund sites

Foreclosing on the property, which was once called “the most serious environmental
problem in the United States,” would have delayed the redevelopment of the site, said
Peter Miller, township administrator.

“If we foreclosed on the property, we would get nothing,” Miller said. “Under this
agreement, we are able to recoup the taxes that are owed on the property and the
property can be reused for something else.”

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As part of the agreement, the developer is required pay off the back taxes and interest
over the next 20 years. The first payment of $25,000 is due May 1.

Jerry Snow, a resident of the area since 2001, said he was happy with the way the
cleanup was handled and happy to see something planned for the site. Snow lives a
quarter mile from the former landfill.

“I’ve only heard stories of what happened with the dumping,” said Snow, 48. “Over the
years they did their best to clean up what happened. They replaced the pipes and also
built the treatment center.”

Cleaning up Price’s Pit has been a decades-long process. It was one of the first sites in
New Jersey to undergo cleanup under the federal Superfund program.

The 26-acre site, located off Saw Mill Road, originally was a sand and gravel
excavation operation that closed in 1968, according to the federal Environmental
Protection Agency.

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Price's Pit in Atlantic County will soon be sealed off and buried
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Beginning in 1971, the site started to accept a combination of both drummed and bulk
liquid wastes. The waste included industrial chemicals, sludges, oil, grease, septic tank
and sewer wastes. Tank trucks emptied bulk waste into the pit. Others dumped drums;
some of these drums were punctured.

Chemical waste disposal ended in late 1972, sludge disposal ended in spring 1973 and
municipal waste disposal ended in 1976, according to the EPA. It is estimated that
more than 9 million gallons of chemical waste were disposed of at the site during
landfill operations, the EPA said. As a result, soil and groundwater in the area are
contaminated.

“In the late ’70s, early ’80s, people living in the area started to get sick,” said Rick
Dovey, president of the Atlantic County Utilities Authority. “As people began to look
into what happened, they would find that the groundwater in the area was
contaminated.”

As part of the nearly $95 million remediation process, a new wastewater treatment
facility was built across the street from the site, to remove toxins from the groundwater
— a process the EPA estimates will take about 25 years.

Superfund-related regulations for Price’s Pit essentially forbid development that

requires digging into the ground, he said. The proposed solar farm could sit atop the
former landfill, Mayor James “Sonny” McCullough said.

“At one time, someone approached us about a skeet shooting range, but that didn’t
seem to go very far,” McCullough said. “As far as we are concerned, this is the best
project that we have there.”

Contact: 609-272-7046

NHuba@pressofac.com

Twitter @ACPressHuba

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