By Sarina Trangle
The EPA announced Thursday it designated the land once owned by a now-defunct Ridgewood company involved with the Manhattan Project a federal Superfund site.
Judith Enck, the regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said the radiation levels found near the shuttered Wolff-Alport Chemical Company, which operated at 11-27 through 11-29 Irving Ave., belonged in the Superfund program. The initiative is designed to clean up the country’s most contaminated properties and bill responsible parties for the work.
“This is a site in a densely populated neighborhood, very close to where people live, where they work, where they go to school, where they send their kids to day care,” Enck said. “EPA is very interested in getting this site cleaned up.”
Wolff-Alport, which was contracted to assist with the Manhattan Project on atomic bomb research, processed sand from the Belgian Congo to remove and sell rare elements from 1920-54. The company disposed of hazardous and radioactive byproducts, including thorium, by dumping them in the sewer until the Atomic Energy Commission ordered it to stop in 1947. The EPA believes some thorium may have been dumped or buried on company land, Enck said.
Enck stressed that there is no immediate threat to people in the area, but she said frequent exposure to thorium radiation may increase people’s risk for cancer.
A 2012 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report found radiation levels in front of 11-29 Irving Ave. were deemed at least 75 times higher than on the average city block. Workers at Los Primos Auto Body Shop, which is located where Wolff-Alport operated, may have an elevated risk of developing cancer, it said.
The EPA will need to conduct further studies before deciding whether the car shop and other buildings on the site may remain standing, Enck said.
The agency will now begin studying the extent of the contamination, compile a plan to mitigate it and attempt to bill responsible parties, which could include companies that bought a stake in Wolff-Alport.
A deli, auto body shop, ice-making facility and other small businesses that have opened since Wolff-Alport closed in 1954 were included in the 0.75-acre Superfund site. But a day care 900 feet away and the nearby PS/IS 384 were not. Enck said the EPA detected radioactive gas in a storage unit at PS/IS 384 and used concrete to seal it.
Further tests indicated the school was safe, but Enck said EPA would continue to monitor the campus.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
