Communities reclaim the river: EPA begins superfund cleanup in North Jersey

Hackensack, NJ - On the surface, the Lower Hackensack River winds quietly through Bergen and Hudson counties. But beneath that calm lies centuries of industrial waste: PCBs, mercury, arsenic, and heavy metals settled deep in the riverbed — toxic remnants of over 200 years of manufacturing and pollution.

“The river has been getting better for years now,” said Capt. Bill Sheehan, executive director of Hackensack Riverkeeper. “But we’re never going to get the river 100% ready for the public until we get the bottom cleaned up.” In his words, the real barrier to full recovery isn’t in the water column but in the sediment, contamination that continues to feed toxins into the food chain and prevent safe fishing and recreation. 

Sheehan began petitioning the EPA more than a decade ago to list the river as a federal Superfund site. The EPA was ready to act, but a four-year delay caused by state inaction stalled the process. It wasn’t until September 2022 that the Lower Hackensack River was officially added to the National Priorities List, making it eligible for a federally coordinated cleanup. 

“Politics got in the way,” he said, recalling a four-year delay during which the NJDEP declined to sign off on EPA’s recommendation.

Hackensack Riverkeeper staff left to right: Tyler Tierney - Outreach Coordinator, Isaiah Leach - WMA-5 Watershed Ambassador, Captain Hugh Carola - Program Director, Michele Langa - Staff Attorney/ Grant Manager, Captain Bill Sheehan - Riverkeeper/ Executive Director, Jodi Jamieson - Project Manager, Henry Washington - Office Manager, Mike Panos - Donor Relations Manager, and Marta Pomerantz - Paddling Program/ Events Manager. Photo credit: Joseph Frazz Photography

According to Michele Langa, staff attorney for Hackensack Riverkeeper, those delays were caused by changes in state leadership and bureaucratic inertia. “It was just more political bureaucracy than anything else,” she said. 

The river’s listing followed years of sampling and study. From 2015 onwards, the EPA collected sediment samples throughout the river and found widespread contamination with lead, chromium, mercury, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and PCBs — all at levels exceeding state safety benchmarks. These toxins accumulate in the benthic layer, the bottom sediment where crabs and bottom-feeding fish live, and from there move up the food chain. As a result, New Jersey has imposed “do not eat” advisories for American eel, white perch, and blue crabs, and strict consumption limits for white catfish and striped bass. 

Today, EPA is in the early stages of a Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study (July 28th, 2022 – Fall 2026), focusing first on a particularly contaminated bend of the river between Secaucus and Kearny. The initial efforts were a result of an agreement reached between the EPA and Beazer East, Inc., Honeywell International Inc., Morton International, LLC, Occidental Chemical Corporation, and Public Service Electric and Gas Company. This interim action will serve as a test case for broader cleanup efforts across the 19-mile stretch. Full river remediation, according to Langa and Sheehan, may take two decades or more. 

Image credit: Screenshot from https://dep.nj.gov/wp-content/uploads/hackensack-river/docs/hackensack-river-path.pdf

But the timeline hasn’t discouraged the local leaders. “It took 200 years to destroy the river,” Sheehan said. “We’re not going to fix it overnight.”

For residents, those decades of delay carry real consequences. Many people continue to fish in the river, unaware or unconvinced of the health risks. “I still see people fishing in the river, and they have a pail, and they’re taking fish home,” Sheehan said. “I keep telling them you shouldn’t do that... but I don’t have any legal basis for taking the fish away or anything like that.”

What makes this cleanup possible, though, is the EPA’s “polluter pays” model. Langa noted that unlike some Superfund sites where the municipality itself is the polluter— forcing taxpayers to bear the burden— the Lower Hackensack project involves corporate responsible parties. These include industries that either discharged pollution themselves or acquired properties with legacy contamination.

But funding alone doesn’t guarantee success. Langa and Sheehan both expressed concern that should there be any changes in EPA funding or policy priorities the process could be jeopardized. “We have a really great Superfund team at EPA,” Langa said. “But if EPA loses funding... the process is then forced to drag on much longer than it needs to.”

To help ensure transparency and community involvement, Riverkeeper and local advocates are forming a Community Advisory Group (CAG). The CAG provides a direct line between residents and EPA decision-makers, giving locals a chance to weigh in on cleanup plans, voice concerns, and monitor progress. “You’re representing your community on the CAG,” Langa said. “And bringing to EPA and the responsible parties the concerns that your neighborhood might have.”

The group has already held outreach meetings and drawn interest from a dozen volunteers. Over the next few months, they’ll finalize details like membership, facilitation, and communications protocols. Once formally launched, the CAG will become a key forum for everything from construction logistics to ecological restoration — with representatives from EPA, NJDEP, local governments, and polluters’ engineers expected to attend open public meetings.

This model of participatory cleanup builds on the success of the nearby Passaic River Superfund site, where a long-standing CAG has helped hold polluters accountable and shape site redevelopment. “That’s the model I want to follow for the Hackensack site,” Langa said. “To make sure the cleanup is not just a good cleanup, but one that benefits the community.”

Hackensack Riverkeeper Volunteer Education. Photo credit: Jodi Jamieson

Sheehan and Langa emphasized that meaningful cleanup depends on community involvement — not just attendance, but active participation. “The main thing is to get the EPA, keep the EPA on track, and keep the citizens engaged, so that they can go back into their communities and become like liaisons to their own communities,” Sheehan said. “Not just come to a meeting once in a while and that’s it. No, you want to take what you learn at the meetings and then share that with your home constituents.”

Langa explained that the Community Advisory Group “really does work as a conduit,” giving residents a voice in everything from traffic and construction to site restoration. “You're representing your community on the CAG,” she said, “and bringing to EPA and the responsible parties the concerns that your neighborhood might have.”

Even those not ready to join can still play a role. “The biggest ask is for folks to keep an eye out for CAG news, so that even if you don't want to be a member... the CAG meetings are going to be open to the public. So just, you know, come listen, hear what's happening,” Langa said. “Maybe you decide after a meeting or two that you actually do want to be a member — that's fine. We want to have as many voices represented as possible.”

That emphasis on justice is central to the entire project. “Most environmental justice communities are the ones who have been most severely impacted by historical contaminants,” Langa explained. “It's also the same communities who have been physically separated from their resources by warehousing and industrial buildings…By cleaning up this river… there are generations who will finally be able to access and enjoy their waterways without fear.”

“There’s no magic wand that’s going to fix this overnight,” Sheehan said. “But if we don’t start now, it’s never going to get done.”