Dive Brief:
- Asbestos may be buried at the troubled Fenimore landfill in Roxbury Township, NJ.
- Strategic Environmental Partners, the operators of the landfill, said that the landfill accepted materials possibly containing asbestos from a DEP-approved recycling center.
- Lawyers for Strategic are requesting soil samples from the site areas from which the DEP removed materials. The attorney is questioning DEP protocols, saying that a DEP-licensed recycling center was responsible for the hazardous material as Strategic relies on the DEP to send only approved materials. Strategic has been named the party responsible for the expense of the closure.
Dive Insight:
The DEP was made aware of the issues surrounding asbestos deposited at the landfill in 2012. The state Department of Labor and Workforce Development's Asbestos Control and Licensing division sent the DEP a letter stating that three out of seven soil samples taken from Fenimore tested positive for asbestos.
However, by late that year, the asbestos issue was pushed aside when the DEP detected hydrogen sulfide at the site. At that point, DEP seized the landfill under an emergency order, and remediation efforts got underway. Roxbury officials requested soil samples, but the DEP denied the request; Roxbury petitioned the court last month, but was denied on the grounds that additional testing would result in further delays to remediation.
