Welcome to CRISIS
epa superfund sites new jersey
NJ superfund sites
CRISIS is the toxic waste cleanup advocacy group of Bridgewater Township, New Jersey. CRISIS has been providing critical and technical oversight on behalf of the public (regarding the American Cyanamid/Pfizer Superfund site) since 1992.
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Fall 2015 - EPA Press Release

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Cyanamid Toxic Waste Site in Bridgewater, NJ, south of train station and west of 287. Raritan River lower right
CRISIS - An environmental action group:
  • Promoting remediation of Cyanamid Superfund Site (In Bridgewater + Bound Brook, NJ)
  • Original Cyanamid site now being tackled by Pfizer/WHC and US-EPA
  • Non-profit group working for Bridgewater and Somerset County, NJ for over 25 years
  • Community watchdog for this complex, highly contaminated (tars containing benzene + other VOC’s) site between East Main St. + Raritan River 
  • Provides on-going information on technical approaches, challenges + clean-up progress; plus independent analysis. 
  • Holder of US-EPA TAG Grant since 1993, which funds technical advisor and website

Link to our Technical Reports>>>
Impoundments 1+2 south of Conrail and west of 287 (Impoundment 2 is the darker square pool on the left)
Impoundment 2 (pre Flexifloat)
January 2015 highlights

Remediation issues concerning impoundments 1+2
  • Worst contaminated area (tars with 6% benzene)
  • Lab + pilot tests completed Q2/14
  • 80 degrees C heating drives off benzene/VOC's for capture
  • Solidification in a cement possible, but some leaching of VOC's will occur over time
  • How to scale up this treatment to 4-acres?
  • Study and approval can take 2 more years 
  • Where to remove treated materials to?
  • Refused by off-site landfills
  • Maybe to off-site kilns?
  • Draft FFS study on OU8 - 2H/2015 possible 
Impoundment 2 Flexifloat installed for pilot test. Fall 2013
Impoundment 2 pilot test system. The treatment cell is a customized 7' diameter caisson driven through an opening in the Flexifloat platform (see above) to a depth of about 15'. The contaminated layer (including heavy metals and VOC's) are contained and heated within. The Vapors are treated on site (see below). The results from these test will help inform us how to best proceed. This test will treat just a tiny portion of only impoundment 2. This test was underway the early months of 2014. We are awaiting the results.
This equipment is responsible for removing VOC's and other harmful chemicals from the vapor extracted from Impoundment 2 during the pilot test. It is the part of the system illustrated above.

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Permanent Groundwater Treatment Plant (GWTP)
  • High priority Issue
  • Hydrology of overburden (20-30 feet deep soils) and bedrock - was studied in 2014
  • Complex groundwater (GW) flows
  • Treatment methods resolved
  • Overburden and bedrock GW to be treated separately
  • Treated groundwater is likely to be reinjected into overburden and bedrock separately
  • Testing is on-going
  • GWTP design 2015-16, construction 2017 and partial operation 2018 




Modular/Interim GWTP and Isolation Barriers
  • Interim GWTP plus barrier wall and isolation trench operating since mid 2012
  • Benzene level in Raritan River basically undetectable (below 0.15 ppB, the surface water standard)




Rest of OU4 (2012 EPA-ROD)
  • In pre-design engineering phase
  • Impoundments (IMPs) 13, 17, 24 (ERA)
  • Ecological risk assessment (ERA) process (2015)
  • CRISIS pushes for the removal of these principal threat materials (PTW)
  • IMPs 3, 4 and 5: bench studies on solidification (2015) 
  • Soil caps must be hardened vs floods
  • priority lowered pending GWTP work
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