Resident contacts DEP after neighborhood fluid leak

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Proving that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, a Hazelwood Road resident, dissatisfied with the township response to an hydraulic fluid leak in her neighborhood, contacted the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection about her concern. The DEP then alerted the Hazmat Unit of the Nutley Fire Department, which handles hazardous material accidents in Essex County, to come to Bloomfield. The unit did came and deployed an absorbent boom in a Hazelwood Road storm drain.
According to an April 13 Bloomfield Fire Department report, a township-contracted street sweeper blew an hydraulic fluid line and sprayed fluid on Hazelwood Road and Clarendon Place.
“We used 42 bags of Speedy Dry to absorb the spill. The Speedy Dry was swept by hand into the spill to absorb it. There was no pooling of fluid, just a long trail of residue of hydraulic oil,” the fire department report said.
According to the report, another street sweeper came to sweep up the remaining absorbent material.
But the efforts of the BFD did not satisfy Hazelwood Road resident Sandra Pyskaty.
On Saturday, May 7, sitting in her living room with neighbors Lisa Simpson and Bloomfield Board of Education member Emily Smith, Pyskaty said her family has been in the garbage-hauling business for several generations. When her company had a spill in a parking lot, it had to pay $16,000 for remediation.
“Essex County Hazmat should have been called in,” she said. “This has made it into the sewer drain. If they had called, Hazmat would have handled the situation much differently. People won’t even cross the street or walk their dogs because it will trek into the house.”
“They should have alerted the neighborhood,” Simpson said. “‘Watch your dog, watch your kids,’” Maybe something still has to be done.”
Pyskaty agreed. She said a hazmat unit should be notified although it was almost a month after the leak occurred.
“When it rains, it is just going to go into the sewer,” she said.
“We get a ticket for every little faux pas and not there is no consequence to this?” Smith said.
“There was a huge puddle,” Simpson added.
Outside, two stained areas and tire tracks were visible on the road. Several other residents from the area stopped to say something about the leak. One woman said had to be careful with her dog; a man said the tracks of the street sweeper, the one that blew the line, went down Hazelwood, all the way to Walnut Street, across the railroad tracks, where you could see a U-turn, about a quarter mile away. Tracks also turned onto Clarendon Place.
Chief Joseph McCarthy, in an email, said that at 9:30 a.m. on April 13, the fire department was dispatched to Williamson Street for a fluid spill. Speedy Dry was applied “to the rather long, linear, but very narrow hydraulic fluid leak.”
“There were no puddles, pooling or flowing of the fluid,” he said. “A limited amount of fluid had been spilled. The spill was in the form of a smear in the street. Bloomfield DPW used a different street sweeper to collect the Speedy Dry.”
Pyskaty, however got into gear. Beginning Saturday, May 14, she sent a battery of emails to the Department of Environmental Protection. One said, “Every time I call in a NJ Hazmat the local firemen show up it’s the third time already I just don’t get it????”
On Monday, May 16, the DEP informed Pyskaty that Nutley Hazmat would be deploying a boom in one of the sewers.
And according to a May 16 Bloomfield Police Department report, the scene of the spill was revisited.
“No action taken by BFD,” the report said. “Nutley placed booms in the sewer.”
McCarthy said the DEP had contacted Nutley Hazmat based on a resident’s concern and the unit had then contacted the fire department.
“Nutley and Bloomfield then performed a follow up evaluation of the area,” he said. “While there was no residual liquid noted, Hazmat placed a boom in the storm drain as a precautionary measure.”
McCarthy said a hazardous materials unit is notified depending on the degree of hazard of the product spilled, the amount of spill, if there any pooling, if the spill three dimensional and if the spill involves waterways.