ENVIRONMENT
ENVIRONMENT
The Hackensack Riverkeeper : Advoc
By Larry Feld , Contributing Editor
When the EPA announced in September of 2022 that approximately 23 miles of the Hackensack River – essentially from the Oradell Dam down to where it meets the Newark Bay – would be added to the EPA ’ s National Priorities List , it was the Hackensack Riverkeeper organization that earned the credit .
“ Without Bill Sheehan ’ s tireless efforts , we probably would not have been able to make this announcement ,” Walter E . Mugdan , U . S . EPA Regional Administrator said at a recent CIANJ environmental conference .
The EPA ’ s public credit to the Riverkeeper was years in the making . In fact , it was in January of 2015 when Captain Bill Sheehan , Executive Director of the Hackensack Riverkeeper organization filed the first paperwork requesting Superfund status for the river , an action he was initially reluctant to take .
“ I was not really a big fan of putting the river on the Superfund list ,” Captain Sheehan notes , “ Because I thought it would take too long and get bogged down in the courts .” However , the organization ’ s attorney convinced him to move forward . “ He told me that if we didn ’ t do it , the river might never get cleaned .”
The fact is , Captain Sheehan realized that the river would never attain the fishable and swimmable goals established by the Clean Water Act due to the centuries of contamination that lay deep in the riverbed ’ s silty bottom .
“ For years the river was used as a disposal site . Chemical companies and power-producing utilities were polluting the river — as a result , there is every contaminant known to man . From PCBs and heavy metals to Dioxin ,” Sheehan explains .
“ By putting the lower Hackensack River on the national priorities list , it unlocks a series of Federal tools and resources necessary to accomplish a task as big as this to recover this natural resource for the communities around it ,” notes EPA ’ s Mugden .
After many years of discussion , testing , and information-gathering , a formal request was made in 2021 from the State of New Jersey to the EPA asking that the Hackensack River be formally added as a Superfund site . “ They did a great job picking up the ball ,” Captain Sheehan says about the EPA during the initial evaluation period .
Founded in 1997 , The Hackensack Riverkeeper is no stranger to taking on big environmental challenges . In its infancy , the organization became a fierce objector to a mall development project proposed by the Mills Corporation in the Meadowlands . The project was originally proposed on approximately 206 acres of wetlands that was known as the Empire
tract , today known as the Richard P . Kane Natural Area . “ The alternative was the parking lot next to the Continental arena . We said , there ’ s well over 200 acres over there . Why don ’ t they develop their mall there ?” Sheehan says . As expected , a process ensued .
Sheehan notes that in the late 1990s land in the Meadowlands area , much of it sensitive wetlands , was in high demand from developers . It was also during this period that the Riverkeeper
Captain Bill Sheehan , Executive Director of the Hackensack Riverkeeper organization , teaches students ab
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