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jeanlucpikachu t1_j6ir21e wrote

I would love to know what's involved in cleaning up superfund sites. Is it actually cleaned, or is the whole thing sealed in an impermeable membrane and paved over?

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PotentialAccident339 t1_j6isbav wrote

> Is it actually cleaned, or is the whole thing sealed in an impermeable membrane and paved over?

If you read the superfund documents for most sites, it's the latter.

NJ couldn't even get the Passaic River cleanup right. They're dredging about half of the contaminated soil and then dumping some clean soil on top, instead of just removing all of the poisonous muck altogether.

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sutisuc t1_j6jsa2u wrote

Yup. Fourth smallest state by land area in the country but most superfund sites, especially in proximity to where the majority of people live here. But any time the stereotype of us being a polluted mess comes up this sub falls all over itself to excuse it

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Dozzi92 t1_j6kvw9g wrote

NJ is definitely polluted. America was built on the back of NJ industry. NJ has not begin given its just due in regard to the hundreds of sites that are essentially unusable at this point, and it's a shame because there is a growing dearth of land in proximity to places people work.

To the OC of this chain, cleanups vary from site to site. Sometimes there's digs. Sometimes there's monitoring and capping. It really depends on what's there. If it's buried household waste, essentially, capping it and preventing it from being disturbed, placing monitoring wells downstream to monitor for any impacts to groundwater, you kind of cover all the bases.

And that's a simplistic recap, but at the end of the day you identify what's there, identify if and where it's going, and from there you determine the course of action.

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Sonicfan42069666 t1_j6o2pe9 wrote

I'll never forget reading a headline as a kid that NJ had gotten down to 99% water contamination. It was a big accomplishment!

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metsurf t1_j6mg9fe wrote

In Boonton they tore down alll the buildings, then excavated down about twenty feet and removed all the soil from the old EF Drew Chemical plant. They then backfilled everything and built a Walmart.

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