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Hazardous Waste Cleanup: Clariant Corporation in Fair Lawn, New Jersey

On this page:

  • Cleanup Status
  • Site Description
  • Contaminants at this Facility
  • Site Responsibility

Cleanup Status

Clariant has excavated surface soil that exceeds acceptable levels of contamination and shipped it off-site for disposal and covered some surface soil with a geotextile cover to prevent exposure. The corporation has also installed a system that extracts contaminants to clean up subsurface soil. Another system is pumping out contaminated groundwater, treating it, then discharging it to the Passaic River. Current monitoring data indicates that the groundwater extraction system is successfully containing the contamination so that it does not migrate off the site.

The facility has submitted a Remedial Investigation Report to to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection that details the results of recent passive diffusion bag sampling of the benthic/surface water of the Passaic River.

Clariant has met the groundwater and human exposure Environmental Indicators. Soil borings were recently completed in the former underground storage tanks and lime pit areas of the site. This data will be used to test the use of chemical oxidation as a remedy and to evaluate remedial progress in these areas.


Site Description

Clariant Corporation is located on a 13.55-acre on Fairlawn Avenue and Third Street, in the Borough of Fair Lawn, New Jersey, since 1945. It manufactures several products used by the textile and paper industries, including softeners, brighteners and dyes.


Contaminants at this Facility

Releases from one underground storage tank resulted in soil and groundwater contamination from volatile organic compounds such as orthodichlorobenzene, 1,2-dichlorobenzene and tetrachloroethene. The primary contaminant is orthodichlorobenzene and related compounds. The groundwater sampling data indicates that contamination may have migrated down to the bedrock.


Site Responsibility at this Facility

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Corrective Action activities at this facility have been conducted under the direction of EPA Region 2.