A Win for the Kids and Parents of Atlantic Highlands

by: Winston Smith

Tue Sep 15, 2009 at 04:36:00 PM EDT

Parents had organized and were working with local school officials, but the polluter was dragging his feet. DEP failed to back local efforts by enforcing State cleanup laws to hold the polluter accountable. As a result, more cleanup delays ensued as the polluter was allowed to flout cleanup requirements. Children were needlessly exposed to toxic chemicals.

We are pleased to note that the organizing and hard work of a committed group of parents paid off - DEP just announced  a cleanup agreement. Congratulations to those parents and kudos as well to local school officials.

Three years after DEP first learned of the problems at the school, DEP Assistant  Commissioner Irene Kropp finally announced the following:

The DEP case manager attended a meeting at 1:00 PM with the Atlantic Highlands School Superintendent, his attorney and his consultant along with the potentially responsible party (PRP), his attorney and his consultant.   The case manager called just minutes ago to advise me of the following:

The outstanding issues between the parties have been resolved;

The Atlantic Highlands School Board will formally approve the installation of the DEP-approved sub-slab vapor mitigation system at tomorrow's Board meeting;

The PRP's consultant will begin installing the system on September 21, with an anticipated completion date of October 16;

The system will be installed on a room-by-room basis while school is in session, however, the rooms undergoing installation will be closed for the entire school day;

The cafeteria/kitchen installation will take place between October 9 through 12, while the school is scheduled to be closed;

In light of these developments, we will not be preparing a formal response to Mr. Wolfe's inquiry.

Please contact Assistant Director Ken Kloo, at 2-1251, if you have specific questions or need additional information.

Irene Kropp
Assistant Commissioner
Site Remediation Program
NJDEP

For linked version, with photo and documents, see:
http://wolfenotes.com/2009/09/...