New Jersey was once the poster child of hazardous waste sites. After four decades of promises, legislation, and considerable cleanup action, it is still littered with sites where cleanup has failed.
"Forty-one years ago, then-Gov. William T. Cahill pledged that a new agency — the Department of Environmental Protection — would aggressively identify and clean up toxic sites.
The industrial pollution and illegal dumping that had turned New Jersey into one of the most notoriously contaminated states in the nation was no longer going to be tolerated.
Ten years later, the federal Environmental Protection Agency embarked on a promising new program to rid the country of its most polluted sites.
Because of those programs, regulators and lawmakers insist the state is much cleaner now. But there are still enough stories of failed cleanups to raise the question: Does the system work?"
Scott Fallon reports for the Bergen Record November 21, 2011.
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