By Eric Obernauer
Posted Jan 14, 2020 at 4:21 PM
A bill intended to crack down on the illegal dumping of tainted and contaminated soil awaits Gov. Phil Murphy’s signature after passing the state Senate on a 39-0 vote late Monday, just as the 2018-19 legislative session was about to expire.
The bill, S1683, follows the passage of the Assembly version, A4267, on a 75-0 vote in December.
The bill’s approval comes as the state is moving to freeze the assets and bank accounts of Joseph Wallace, of Vernon, to make him pay for the cleanup of his Silver Spruce Drive site, where tests last March detected elevated levels of volatile organic compounds, PCBs, and the pesticide chemical chlordane in a dump pile that grew to be over 75 feet high over a period of nearly a decade.
In October, Wallace was also given a 30-day jail sentence and fined $60,260 by a municipal judge; he currently is appealing that sentence.
The legislation approved by the state Senate on Monday was introduced in 2018 amid the ongoing effort to halt illegal dumping by the operators like Wallace, who previously had pleaded guilty in 2017 to dumping in New York state.
The bill’s introduction followed a 2016 state investigative report, titled “Dirty Dirt,” which documented the infiltration into New Jersey’s recycling industry of self-styled “dirt brokers,” some of whom were raking in large sums of money through dumping after having been banned from the state’s garbage industry because of ties to organized crime. A second state investigative report last June, titled “Dirty Dirt II,” detailed the continuation of illegal dumping at a site in Marlboro and the failure by the state to properly oversee elements of its recycling program.
New Jersey Sierra Club Director Jeff Tittel, in a statement late Monday, lauded the Senate’s passage of the bill — which would subject those working in “recycling” to the same regulatory standards as are applied to those working in solid waste — and urged the governor to sign it.
″(This) industry has ties to the mob, and there are serious pollution and health impacts,” he said.
Tittel accused the state Department of Environmental Protection of ignoring the problem for years and said the illegal dumping in Vernon and elsewhere should be “a wakeup call to our Legislature and the Murphy Administration that we need more enforcement power and inspections.”
“In Vernon, a judge did the DEP’s job for them,” Tittel said. “The DEP looked the other way and would not enforce the cleanup at this site for far too long.”
Vernon Councilman Harry Shortway — who, as mayor, sought action by the DEP to stop the dumping in Vernon — has suggested additional measures are needed to criminalize the activities it is aimed at stopping.
Eric Obernauer can also be contacted on Twitter: @EricObernNJH or by phone at 973-383-1