HUDSON COUNTY – For the second time in three weeks, FBI agents took computers from the Jersey City offices of the Hudson County Improvement Authority in what appears to be a statewide investigation involving the dumping of tainted toxic soil.
The FBI arrived at the Summit Avenue offices on Wednesday and removed records, according to sources with the county.
Under federal law, soil removed from contaminated sites such as former gas stations or chemical industrial sites must be processed through specific channels – often at great expense. Some contractors have in the past been caught dumping contaminated soil or mixing it with clear soil to be used as fill for projects. Although the HCIA has inspectors at the site of the proposed golf course off Lincoln Park in Jersey City, the FBI is apparently seeking to learn whether or not tainted loads were brought onto the site.
“This appears to be part of a larger investigation,” one source said.
The investigation may not be focused on the HCIA, this source said, but on the practices of subcontractors involved in this and other projects around the state.
The second raid may also have been made as a result of information obtained in the first raid, one source said.
Officials with knowledge of the situation said that the second raid by the FBI appears to have come as the result of computers missed during the first raid three weeks ago.
“They also seem to be on a fishing expedition,” one source, claiming that several secretaries and others were interviewed about employees going out to dinner and other activities at the government expense.