Combe Fill North Landfill sits in Mount Olive Township, Morris County, New Jersey. The 65-acre site operated as a sanitary municipal waste facility from 1966 to 1978, accepting domestic and industrial wastes and dry sewage sludge. After the owner filed for bankruptcy in 1981, the site was not properly closed. EPA added it to the National Priorities List in September 1983 and deleted it in June 2004 after construction of the cleanup was completed.
The main contaminants are volatile organic compounds (VOCs) found in groundwater and indoor air, along with 1,4-dioxane detected in monitoring wells above New Jersey's Interim Ground Water Quality Standard of 0.4 parts per billion. EPA has identified 15 contaminants of concern in soil and groundwater, including bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, dichloromethane, ethylbenzene, hexachlorobenzene, methane, phenol, and toluene.
EPA and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) carried out a cleanup between 1986 and 1991. The work included grading and compacting waste, installing a clay cover, adding a drainage collection system, installing a methane ventilation system, and fencing the site. After high concentrations of 1,4-dioxane turned up in private and commercial drinking water wells in 2014 and 2015, NJDEP provided bottled water to affected households and installed a municipal water supply line. That waterline extension was completed in March 2019. In 2021 and 2022, a solar developer installed a 20-megawatt solar farm on the landfill, coordinated by NJDEP.
The site is deleted from the National Priorities List, but cleanup goals affecting current and expected future land uses have not all been achieved. The performance measure for human exposure shows insufficient data to determine whether exposures are currently controlled. NJDEP leads ongoing groundwater and air monitoring and is planning additional monitoring wells to check impacts on public water supply wells and nearby newly installed wells. EPA issued an Explanation of Significant Differences in September 2023, adding institutional controls, which are legal restrictions on land use, to the remedy for Operable Unit 1. EPA conducted its most recent five-year review in September 2024.
Community members who want to follow cleanup progress can review site documents at the EPA Superfund Records Center at 290 Broadway, 18th floor, in New York City, or at the Mount Olive Public Library in Budd Lake, New Jersey. Direct questions can go to the EPA Community Involvement Coordinator or the Remedial Project Manager.
