Residents Call for EPA Takeover of DuPont Site in NJ

MYFOXNY.COM - Residents of Pompton Lakes, N.J., and some local officials are calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step in and take charge of cleaning up their community after a state report said that the area has elevated rates of some cancers, possibly linked to contaminants.

Last week, New Jersey health officials issued a report warning residents of a Pompton Lakes neighborhood of the elevated cancer rates. The area is near pollution from an explosives manufacturing plant that had operated in the borough for more than a hundred years.

Officials with the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Serv ices sent letters to neighborhood residents, urging them to install equipment that can remove potentially harmful vapors from their homes.

DuPont Pompton Lakes Works operated an explosives manufacturing plant at the site from the 1880s until 1994. Waste management practices at the plant lead to significant contamination of soils, surface water and ground water, both on and off the site, state officials have said.

At a public meeting there Tuesday, Citizens for a Clean Pompton Lakes released a 10-point plan for addressing the contamination. The group's plan calls on the EPA to list the DuPont site on the National Priority Superfund list.

Health officials examined rates for 13 types of cancer in the area from 1979 to 2006. The analysis revealed elevated rates of kidney cancer in women (but not in men) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in men (but not in women) for 1994 to 2006.