$20M removal of 'highly contaminated mud' from Passaic River underway in Lyndhurst

[basspilot]

I'm kind of curious how long the toxins currently in the fish and other creatures in the passsic will take to be called "safe" to eat. I would imagine this will take a while but its good to see the passaic finally receive the attention its deserved for decades.

[gnuisance]

Wow it must have been pretty bad in the past. I have to say it's a little unnerving to hear all these things about how the P was such a dumping ground. I don't eat anything from there and never would but I fish it and beat those banks pretty good. Am I going to grow an arm out of my ass?

[Jigman13]

Does removing the mud offer a solution or create a short-term problem, kicking the contaminants up and re-introducing them back into the flow of the river? What are the effects of said contaminants on the current and future fish populations of the mighty PR?

I know what the long term angle is--clean up the river. I feel as if, from an investigative report standpoint, several additional questions should have been raised and addressed. But I certainly do not oppose the long term goal.

[FASTEDDIE29]

Interesting!!!

[Lard Almighty]

Originally Posted by Jigman13

Does removing the mud offer a solution or create a short-term problem, kicking the contaminants up and re-introducing them back into the flow of the river? What are the effects of said contaminants on the current and future fish populations of the mighty PR?

I know what the long term angle is--clean up the river. I feel as if, from an investigative report standpoint, several additional questions should have been raised and addressed. But I certainly do not oppose the long term goal.

You are never going to remove 100% of the contaminated silt from the river. Some will not be able to be accessed due to engineering limitations. Others, like you said, will be lost to the flow of the river and redistributed further downstream. Likely, the disturbance of the sediments will create a short-lived spike in waterborne contamination, but will ultimately benefit water quality. Current aquatic life may accumulate additional contamination in their tissue as a result, but should otherwise be able to live fairly normally. As long as their is sufficient food and oxygen, fish can live with quite a bit of pollution in their systems before they die off.

[acabtp]

Originally Posted by basspilot

I'm kind of curious how long the toxins currently in the fish and other creatures in the passsic will take to be called "safe" to eat. I would imagine this will take a while but its good to see the passaic finally receive the attention its deserved for decades.

in all likelihood, the lower passaic river, hackensack river, and the whole newark bay complex will never be safe to eat fish from again.

removing all of the contaminated sediment will never happen, there is just too much. right now, they are concentrating efforts on the sediments where dioxin is highly concentrated as a result of agent orange manufacturing back during the vietnam war. but dioxin is just one high profile type of a huge number of contaminants in the water there, a small portion of a huge problem. a lot of other issues, like heavy metal contamination, remain waiting there, without breaking down, effectively forever. every storm that stirs up mud, every crab that burrows around, ever bottom feeding fish that kicks up the silt... they are all slowly releasing the contaminants back into the water.

[buzzbaiter]

Most toxins - PCBS, pests, metals inc. mercury - are in the sediment/sludge but once disturbed, can remain suspended for quite some time which means they get carried out to Hudson River/Bay and/or the ocean. They should have done this last year when the river was at near record low levels and these "mudflats" were all exposed. The inside of bends is where this stuff builds up. Scoop that sh*t out. It would help alleviate some flooding. In all honesty, most of the river could use a good dredging. Its too shallow for its size and basically its one long sand /mud flat from Long Hill Twp up to Two Bridges except around Chatham where some rocks show up.

[ScowardNJ]

I attended a presentation a few months ago put on by the Lower Passaic Cooperating Parties Group which is basically a planning group that was assembled by all the industries that the EPA is pointing their finger at to remediate the contamination of the 17 mile stretch from Dundee to Newark Bay. These guys did the whole cost/benefit talk and the plan they are shooting for is to attempt a shallow dredge and cap as compared to a total dredge and removal. Their angle was by proposing a dredge and cap, they would initially remove a substantial amount of hot materiel along the top layers of the bed, cap it with clean material and let then let the river deal with the deep/capped contaminates through "Natural Recovery" which they claim would reach the acceptable levels mandated by the EPA in about 50 years. They said that a total dredge would achieve the same level in 50 years and at a much, MUCH, higher cost. I have their power point presentation, I'll post it if i can figure out a way to scan it and get it on here.

Here's a list of parties involved with the LPCPG

http://lowerpr.com/parties.htm

[Skunk City]

I drove passed this area of river on my way to work this morning and tried to snap some 60mph photos of the barges, cleanup boats, crane, and debris barriers that are set up, but they came out like crap and are not worth posting lol. I will try to snap some after work and post them up. A buddy of mine launched his boat in Nutley the other day and talked to a guy from the cleanup crew. He said they were hoping the Lyndhurst project led to a larger scale cleanup.

[thefishermanmechanic]

I see this every day just south of the rt 3 bridge, huge floating dumpster the size of an Olympic pool, and huge scooper with very large tugboats! Thanks for filling in the blanks!