Green Jersey

Fish study under way in Lower Passaic River

A fish study under way in the Lower Passaic River will reveal exactly what contaminates the fish, crabs and eels in its murky depths — and what risks those fish and crabs pose to humans who eat them.

Scientists are on the river about 10 hours a day, six days a week collecting and identifying a variety of species, then returning to a field facility, a makeshift lab in East Rutherford, to refrigerate and freeze some of the samples and dissect others. A number of specimens will be sent to a lab out of state, where their tissue will be analyzed for a wide range of toxic substances, including PCBs, PAHs, mercury, dioxin and pesticides. They are already known to contain mercury, dioxin and PCBs.

On Wednesday, fish biologist Daniel Diedrich of Windward Environmental, an environmental consulting firm, examined and dissected a carp that had been pulled from the waters that morning. He said it looked comparable to fish he’d studied at other Superfund sites.

The Lower Passaic, a 17-mile stretch of river between the Dundee Dam and Newark Bay, is highly contaminated, one of the most polluted waterways in the state. The scientists’ work is being supervised by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The study is being funded by the Lower Passaic Cooperating Parties group, 73 companies identified by the EPA as potentially responsible for the river contamination, and is part of a larger look at the river’s health.

One major cleanup project is scheduled to start on the river soon. A $45 million, 9-month effort scheduled to begin in late 2010 would remove 40,000 cubic yards of dioxin-contaminated sediment from the riverbed near the site of the former Diamond Alkali plant in Newark.

Scientists will continue pulling fish and crabs from the river until the middle of next month. Later this year, scientists will take samples from mudflats in the river and cull data on sediment and water movement. They also plan to study the birds in the area that feed on the fish.

People are not allowed to eat fish and crabs from the Lower Passaic, but are known to fish there anyway.