Findings & Recommendations for the Remediation of Historic Pesticide Contamination - Final Report March 1999
Table of Contents

Executive Summary

      The increasing development pressures on New Jersey’s remaining farmland have triggered a number of major public policy issues for the state. The Whitman administration is attempting to strike an appropriate balance between new development and the management of the State’s natural resources.

      Recently, one specific issue that needs to be dealt within this larger context was brought to the attention of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (the Department) by the development community. The historical use of agricultural pesticides in New Jersey has resulted in pesticide residues of certain persistent pesticides in soil at concentrations that exceed the Department’s residential soil cleanup criteria and may pose a human health risk. The primary concern with historical pesticide residues is human health risk from inadvertent ingestion of contaminated soil, particularly by children. The presence of moderately elevated pesticide residuals in soil present potential health and marketplace concerns. While there is currently no requirement that agricultural soil be tested prior to development, many developers and lenders are requiring that sites proposed for development undergo an evaluation of environment conditions. In fact, it was such a requirement that triggered the investigation into potential impacts of pesticide residues and soil.

      The Department estimates that up to 5 percent of the state’s acreage may be impacted by the historical use of arsenical pesticides alone. The presence of pesticide residues may be a concern in currently operating farms and orchards as well as properties that have already been developed. Research conducted by the Department indicates similar problems exist in other states and countries.

      The challenge is how to modify the cleanup process currently used in New Jersey to remediate industrial discharges to address the risks presented by historical pesticide contamination.

      Department Commissioner Robert Shinn formed the Historic Pesticide Contamination Task Force to help the Department identify technically and economically viable alternative strategies that will be protective of human health and the environment for sites with contamination due to historical use of pesticides. The Task Force met under the direction of Richard J. Gimello, Assistant Commissioner for the Department’s Site Remediation Program. During their deliberations Task Force members focused on how the Department determines risk and sets cleanup criteria. This report is a product of true compromise by parties with significant interests. While supporting the overall report, the Task Force members, individually, would place different emphasis on the various conclusions, findings and recommendations. Many members continue to have questions about various elements of the report. The Task Force believes that implementation of the remedial options identified in the report are protective of human health and the environment. The Task Force agreed to offer the following recommendations while the Department continues to evaluate relevant environmental data, conduct needed research, monitor economic impacts of these policies and revisit these recommendations as needed.

      The Task Force focused its efforts on several pesticides of concern based upon their extensive agricultural use over a number of years in New Jersey, their persistence in the environment after application, and their presence in sites across the state in concentrations which exceed the Department’s residential soil cleanup criteria. The pesticides of concern, which have not been widely used in many years, are arsenic, lead, DDT (and its metabolites, DDE and DDD), dieldrin and aldrin.

      Over the last 100 years the agricultural community has routinely and consistently applied pesticides to control pests in order to increase crop yield. Application rates, duration of use and persistence in soil are the major factors that contribute to the likelihood that residual pesticides will be present in soil at concentrations above the Department’s residential soil cleanup criteria.

      Once the areas of likely application are identified, it is then important to determine the behavior or fate of the pesticides in the environment to obtain a better idea of where and in what form pesticide residuals are expected to occur. Other environmental factors, which influence a pesticide’s environmental fate, include its ability to become bound to the soil and its solubility. There are also human factors that influence where these residuals are likely to be found, such as site use and soil management. One of the inherent problems with the presence of arsenic and lead, in contrast to the organochlorine pesticides, is that these are two naturally occurring metals and that it is often difficult to distinguish between concentrations from the application of pesticides and those that occur naturally.

      The Department has only collected limited soil sampling data concerning soil pesticide residuals at agricultural properties. While the data are included in the report, the reader is cautioned against attempting to draw conclusions and applying them to specific areas or to the entire state.

      The Historic Pesticide Contamination Task Force applied the Department’s paradigm for determining risk to human health from the environmental exposure to these chemicals. Primarily this includes following the Legislative guidelines in the Brownfield and Contaminated Site Remediation Act, N.J.S.A. 58:10B-1 et seq., for the acceptable risk level of one additional cancer case in one million people exposed and the application of this risk management decision through human health risk assessments following the applicable federal guidelines.

      The Task Force was unable to determine the potential economic impacts which may result from the their recommendations because New Jersey is first in the nation to take actions to control exposure from historical pesticide contamination. However, both the Task Force and Department believe that it was very important to proceed with this evaluation and develop recommendations to educate the public and to make recommendations to mitigate risk from historical pesticide contamination in a timely manner.

      The Historic Pesticide Contamination Task Force makes the following recommendations to assist those involved in the remediation of agricultural properties that have been developed and that will be developed in the future.

• Sampling of former agricultural areas, and any necessary remediation, should be conducted prior to site development.



• Sampling of former agricultural areas, and any necessary remediation, should be conducted for areas with exposed soil that are intensively used by children, such as schools, daycare centers and playgrounds.



• Sampling and remediation at sites that have already been developed, except as noted above, should be conducted whenever the current or potential future occupant desires. The Department should provide guidance concerning sampling methods and exposure control alternatives to any person concerned with historic pesticide contamination.



• The Department should provide an appropriate sampling methodology specifically designed for the investigation of pesticide residues in soil at agricultural properties (Addendum 5);



• The Department should authorize a remedial alternative involving soil blending for pesticide residues in soil in former agricultural areas when it is protective of human health. The Task Force recognizes that soil blending represents a substantial departure from current State policy. Therefore, the Task Force recommends that soil blending apply only to historical pesticide contamination sites.

      Recommendations also include remedial options for new and existing development sites such as the consolidation and covering of contaminated soil on-site under roads and structures or capping contamination with clean soil. The Task Force recommends that the Department allow contaminated soil to be blended with clean soil from on or off-site sources to achieve concentrations at or below the Department’s residential soil cleanup criteria.