The threat posed by contaminated buildings/sites

North Bunswick Fire

 

The threat posed by contaminated buildings/sites is a big problem here in New Jersey. There are many abandoned or converted factory sites that have not been cleaned up. You might not know it but New Jersey has a large number of Superfund sites for a state of our size. If you want to see how long this list is use the following link- EPA Cleanup Site list.

 

When a fire happens at one of these places everyone is potentially at risk to be subjected to any contaminates that are located throughout the whole building/site. For example there is a fire that is still burning as I write this. The fire is located on Livingston AVE (State Route 26) North Brunswick NJ in a warehouse that involves plastics, cars and unknown contaminates. This fire is visible from space and has a smoke plume that reaches out over the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Per NJ PatchOn Wednesday afternoon, Dwayne Harrington of the EPA said a chemical plume – which was largely invisible – was moving up and out of harm’s way. But officials planned to continue to monitor air quality in the area.

“This fire is about the smoke more than anything else,’’ he said.

NJ.com and WCBS News reported that the smoke was visible from space.

 

This is troubling to me and should be to you; if you live nearby. They have made residents that are near to the site leave their homes and those that are allowed to stay have been told not to open windows or operate their air conditioning. That means to me that they are quite sure that what is burning is putting off possible dangerous fumes.

 

Of course there is not only the problem of contamination of our air, but also of the ground plus of our ground water. Many decades ago IBM had a facility in South Brunswick NJ that had a chemical spill that contaminated a nearby township well. This was a very serious problem for the people who used the water from that well. How many will or have gotten cancer because of this contamination? Only time will tell.

 

There are many old abandoned or closed dumps that took in all sorts of chemicals, batteries, etc. throughout our state. You might be living near one of these sites and never have known that it is there. Even worse there have been sites that have been capped and built upon with some possible very bad consequences. Here is an article about a proposed project at the Meadowlands that never happened. It also talks about other projects and you might find it interesting.

 

As far as I am concerned just watching these sites, North Brunswick was one of those, is not enough. And yes, some of these superfund sites have been cleaned up and/or capped to contain the containments. Yet too many sites just sit there with nothing being done to remediate the polluted soil/building. It will take a large amount of money to clean up these sites and many have been abandoned by their owners. Making it difficult to find out who should pay for cleaning them up. Someday soon, I hope they will be attended to and made safe.

 

That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike

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