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June 27, 2013
New Jersey - New Jersey residents working in their gardens this summer have more to worry about than bugs, weeds, and wild animals eating their vegetables. Experts say the floodwaters from Hurricane Sandy transported billions of gallons of sewage to flooded areas, leaving behind toxins that range from petroleum to asbestos and everything in between.
A story on News12 New Jersey profiled the concerns of residents in Little Ferry, NJ, where the Passaic River made its way into the streets, leaving behind more than may have met the eye, environmental experts say.
“Fuel, industrial site material … all of these materials can be picked up by the floodwaters and transported,” says Joel Flagler, the Rutgers University extension officer for Bergen County.
Robert Weitz, of the independent environmental testing company RTK Environmental Group, agrees. He claims his company has done myriad soil tests on areas affected by Hurricane Sandy, noting that results often showed high levels of hazardous materials including asbestos, lead, arsenic, and more. Many results were “as high as triple what a regulatory level says would be acceptable,” Weitz said, though he did not disclose specific test results.
In the meantime, health officers in Bergen County and other New Jersey counties that were severely affected by the storm suggest that amateur gardeners plant herbs and vegetables using raised containers and store-bought soil rather than using the existing dirt in their gardens. Flagler also suggests that those who are truly concerned consider individual testing of the soil on their property.
The Environmental Protection Agency doesn’t believe the threat to the public via soil contamination is large, but they admit that at several New Jersey Sandy-related superfund sites they’ve only performed visual inspections of the soil.
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