NYAS Harbor Project Team Takes on Passaic River Cleanup Consultation
A consultancy hired by the EPA has tapped the Academy for assistance.
Published April 16, 2010
A consultancy hired by the US Environmental Protection Agency to manage a $2 billion Superfund cleanup of the Passaic River in New Jersey has tapped the New York Academy of Sciences for assistance. The consultancy, de maximis, was familiar with the Academy’s “Harbor Project” evaluation of the Hudson River and New York City harbor and “decided to retain a neutral third party to conduct an initial assessment,” says Monica Kurpiewski, Director, Business Development at the Academy.
Kurpiewski says the same team of Academy scientists who oversaw the Harbor Project—Susan Boehme, Marta Panero, Lisa Rodenburg, and Sandra Valle—will take the same industrial ecology approach to evaluate four specific contaminants in and along the lower Passaic River during a six-month project that began in March and will conclude with delivery of a white paper to the technical review committee overseeing the Superfund cleanup. “We will deliver the baseline information to de maximis to help them assess what type of mitigation strategies they need to look at,” Kurpiewski explains.