Wayne, N.J., officials are testing the town's sewer system to see if it could safely handle treated water from a radioactively contaminated source, reports The Record.
Two million gallons of water from the former industrial W.R. Grace site is waiting to be discharged as the Army Corps of Engineers removes remaining thorium-contaminated soil from the site.
Officials are deciding whether to discharge treated water into the town's sewers or into nearby Sheffield Brook. Residents have criticized the plan to pump the water into the brook.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection already has given permission to the corps to filter the water and discharge it into the brook, a tributary of a river that Wayne's treated sewage also flows into.
Water from the site previously had been sent to the Gloucester County Utilities Authority in South Jersey for treatment, but local treatment is more cost effective, corps officials said.
(Source: The Record)
