Alva Sanchez said she had been noticing a foul petroleum oil smell in her neighborhood near North Hudson Braddock Park for more than a year.
“It’s disgusting,” Sanchez said. “It gets in my mouth, my throat. It makes me nauseous. It makes my children nauseous. I don’t know where it’s coming from, but I definitely smell it, and it’s almost every day.”
Other neighbors, who requested anonymity, agreed that something is awry at the intersection of Broadway and 79th Street.
“It’s definitely some kind of oil,” said a man who only wanted to be known as Louie. “There are sometimes I can smell it in my house. Outside is bad enough, but when I can smell it in my living room, then it’s a problem.”
According to the township’s health director, Richard Censullo, his office had received only one phone call complaining about the odor.
“Apparently, this stems from home heating oil from an underground tank that was removed from that area more than a year ago,” Censullo said. “We then referred the matter to the Hudson Regional Health Commission. To my knowledge, there was no petroleum dissipation. The air tested negative. Sometimes, a tank may get overfilled, and with the colder weather coming, a heating oil tank may have been overfilled.”
John Demjanick was one of the Hudson Regional Health Commission investigators assigned to the case.
“A home heating tank was removed last year,” Demjanick said. “The owner of the property hired a consultant to handle the remediation. They removed the contaminated tank and placed there a new tank. At that time, there were oil odors and oil there, but we identified the contamination and it was removed.”
He added, “However, the property is sitting on bedrock and there is always a chance that the oil found other pockets and made its way to other areas. Apparently, some of the ground water picked up the oil and it seeped into a utility vault that is owned and operated by Public Service [Electric & Gas]. It’s where Public Service keeps some of its equipment. Public Service was notified and the area was pumped out.”
Demjanick said that an environmental consultant was hired by the property owner last month to investigate where the odor could be coming from.
“A meeting was held between Public Service and the property owner and an agreement was made to clean it out,” Demjanick said.
But the cleanup was held Oct. 17 and Demjanick believed it should have ended of yearlong problems.
“I’m surprised to hear that they’re still getting smells now,” Demjanick said. “We’ll investigate it further and if we find more, then they will have to take care of it.”
DEP will look at it
While Censullo said he received only one phone call, Demjanick said that his office had not received a single complaint about oil smells.
“Our records show that there has not been one citizen complaint,” Demjanick said. “If anyone has any problems, they should contact us.”
Demjanick said that it is not uncommon to have seepage problems. “Whatever gets into the ground, you never know which way it goes,” Demjanick said. “Especially when the property is on top of rock. It can go anywhere. That’s why we’re not going to get approval to close this case until it’s totally cleaned.”
Demjanick said the state Department of Environmental Protection has also been assigned to the case. “Since it has gone to the DEP, we will investigate further and report back to them,” Demjanick said. “I think it’s now a ground water and soil issue, not an odor problem. If there is an odor problem still, then it’s definitely a nuisance and something has to be done.”
Despite being told what the residents are saying, Censullo believes that it’s not a “major concern.”
“I would have more of a concern with the smell of natural gas or liquid propane gas,” Censullo said. “But we respond to calls 24/7. We’re very sensitive to the needs of our residents. This is a safety issue here and we’re here to protect the public.”
Censullo said that he will have his investigators take another detailed look at the scene and make another report because he received a call from a reporter.
“I want to go up there and check it out myself,” Censullo said. “I wish the people would call us with the complaints instead of the newspapers. It might help to remedy any problem if it exists.”
Sanchez said that she was pleased that the township and the Hudson Regional Health Commission were going to investigate the problem further.
“As long as the town isn’t forgetting us,” Sanchez said. “I didn’t want them to think we were going to sit back and let this happen. If they say that something is going to get done, I’ll accept that.”
If any North Bergen resident has a complaint about any health-related issues, they can contact the North Bergen Health Department at (201) 392-2084 or the Hudson Regional Health Commission at (201) 223-1133. Both agencies said that they would take all necessary information and would guarantee further investigation about all complaints.