New Jersey Friends of Clearwater
New Jersey Friends of Clearwater (NJFC), formerly Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater is a grass roots organization, fully non-profit, volunteer-run and staffed. Since 1974, this organization has been actively trying to educate children and adults on the importance of clean clear water and to urge citizens to be responsible custodians of our domain: the estuaries of Hudson, the Raritan, Delaware, and other NJ Rivers, the Jersey Shore coastline, its inland waterways, and the land of New Jersey.
Almost 40 years ago, Pete Seeger realized a dream by getting the 106' Sloop Clearwater launched and spreading the word for a cleaner environment by word, music and action. A seed from that endeavor took root in the form of Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater when popular folksinger Bob Killian brought the idea to Monmouth County over 35 years ago. NJFC will continue its close affiliation with Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., as a Clearwater Sloop Club. Our new name NJFC reflects our goals, growth and outreach in this new Millennium.
Our credo: It is the aim of New Jersey Friends of Clearwater that each member in their own way touch the people immediately surrounding them and in their community, and by word or deed convey the importance of conservation and reparation of the earth.
Latest News
NJFC Friends Speak Out at Quarterly RAB Meeting
04 Feb 2010 by Edward Dlugosz The FM Restoration Advisory Board (RAB) held its quarterly public meeting at FM Gibbs Hall on January 14, 2010. Besides Mr Dlugosz, a RAB member, friends of NJFC made up the majority of the audience and made their voices heard during the public comment period. Among the attendees were: Eatontown Environmental Commission (EC), Shrewbury EC, Oceanport EC, Tinton Falls EC, Little Silver EC, Clean Ocean Action, Sierra Club, Fort Monmouth Earth Renaissance Peace Alliance, Eatontown Borough Council, Oceanport Borough Council, and Shrewbury Borough Council.
The agenda was full and contained the topics of old business; the status of the BEE, Landfill Streambank Stabilization, Indoor Air Quality/Vapor Intrusion, and Landfill Capping. Also on the agenda were presentations on the progress of the Underground Storage Tanks (UST), Contaminated Groundwater Modeling, and status of the Installation Restoration Program, i.e., progress of contaminated site remediation.
Old Business addressed Mr. Dlugosz's comments on the July's RAB minutes which were tabled since October. Basically the comments addressed the Army's position and ridiculous rationale for not discussing the EA/FNSI at the July's RAB meeting and the intentional exclusion of the Eatontown EC representatives' verbal response to several issues in July's minutes. [details discussed in November 2009 Newsletter]. The outcome of the Old Business discussion was that the FM DPW representatives will revise the minutes to satisfy the comments.
The BEE status was that itsWorkplan was reviewed by NJDEP and DPW was to revise it to accommodate the action items. When asked by our RAB and COA representatives whether the plan would contain extensive downstream sediment testing, we were told that the testing would only take place a couple of feet from the landfill streambank and none would be done downstream unless evidence from those sample indicated more needed to be done. Our contention all along has been that 60 years of landfill, lab chemical outflow, and groundwater migration have left 60 years of contaminated sediment downstream which has affected the plant, animal, and human biosystems.
The landfill streambank stabilization project is almost completed. Landfill M-2, the biggest and most contaminated, is the last of the sites to be stabilized. Most observers feel that the rock access roads are an eyesore and installing the riprap before the newly proposed capping [they now refer to it as landfill "cover"] was poor engineering. The "cover" project still has not moved forward for lack of funds and without a schedule divulged. Lastly, the vapor intrusion retest did not detect vapors above DEP criteria. When asked how high the readings were at the height of the groundwater plume [>7840 ppm] at the Hex, we were told only soil gases were measured not the natural and air-sparged fumes escaping VOCs from GW.
The UST presentation showed progress but the UST removed/remediated statistics provided by the DPW at the RAB were smaller than those of the contractors on site during the UST/Stabilization tour in November. The IRP status still didn't give a clear definition of what still needed to be done although claims of petitions to NJDEP for additional No Further Action (NFA) status were presented. What makes this important and improbable is that the DPW has contracted for a new groundwater migration modeling effort to be done. This is more than curious because, as reported in November, the previous modeling was done and summarized in a report available on their website [Classification Exception Area Information for Various Sites] was done in 2004 as shown in the chart below. When asked why so soon, the answer was that the new modeling will be done with more accurate modeling tools. Sounds suspiciously like they want new and more optimistic results.