Contaminated Fords Pool on Council Agenda

Kids in the Fords section of Woodbridge had their summer fun interrupted when the local public pool was closed because pesticide and cancer-causing PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) contamination was found in the soil.

That might be changing. The Woodbridge Council will be meeting in an executive session Tuesday to discuss action that may be taken about the pool.

The announcement was made in a township legal notice, which said that Highland Grove Pool was on the agenda, as well as "other sites." They were not named.

The executive session will be held at 6:30 pm, a half hour before the regular council meeting at 7 pm.

After the pool was closed in late July to allow for additional testing, Mayor John McCormac held a public meeting on August 6 to discuss the situation with parents whose children used the pool.

McCormac said that the contaminated soil was "very likely brought to the site" when the pool was refurbished by the YMCA in 1999, which he said purchased the pool to rehab it after storm damage in 1996 made it unusable.

The soil was tested last July because state law requires testing of soil at daycare facilities, which the YMCA ran at the pool site. The soil contamination had previously been discovered and reported to the Department of Environmental Protection - but not to the township, the mayor said.

"We are now working on a plan to determine a course of action that would be best for the entire site," McCormac said in August.

Some of the solutions McCormac was mulling included putting a concrete cap on the grassy area or excavating the contaminated soil and replacing it with clean dirt.

In an effort to calm fears, the mayor said that PCBs "were not problematic to people unless ingested orally and in large quantities."

"A child would have to make many mud pies for many days and eat them, something that is very unlikely to have happened," he said.

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