Strategic Investigation of New Jersey’s Berry’s Creek Superfund Site

Project Summary

Innovative Approaches to Tackle One of the Most Complex Contaminated Sediment Sites in the United States

Integral Consulting led the remedial investigation for the Berry’s Creek Study Area, a complex Superfund site in the New Jersey Meadowlands. Our team supported U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and potentially responsible parties (PRPs) by providing comprehensive remedial investigation services, including hydrodynamic and sediment modeling, geochemical analysis, food web studies, and risk assessment.   

Location: Bergen County, New Jersey, USA

Challenge

A Superfund site with extreme complexity in contamination and hydrodynamics. 

Located in the New Jersey Meadowlands, the Berry’s Creek Study Area includes approximately 12 square miles of tidal wetlands, creeks, and marshes contaminated with mercury, PCBs, and other hazardous substances from decades of industrial activity. The challenge was to characterize contaminant distribution and movement in this highly dynamic environment, assess ecological and human health risks, and develop a robust remedial strategy acceptable to multiple stakeholders.  

Our Role

Comprehensive technical support for RI/FS and stakeholder engagement.

Integral served as a key technical consultant, supporting PRPs throughout the RI/FS process. We led efforts to design and implement large-scale field investigations, including sediment, surface water, biota, and porewater sampling. Our team developed site conceptual models, conducted risk assessments, and assessed contaminant fate and transport in close coordination with USEPA and other stakeholders. 

We employed a suite of innovative studies designed to tease apart the interactions between the contaminants and the physical and biological elements, including: 

• Hydrodynamic modeling to understand water flow in typical (tidal) and extreme (Super storms and hurricanes) 
• Sediment studies to understand and quantify sediment movement between waterways and marshes. 
• Optical monitoring studies measure and document contaminant concentration changes with tides and storms. 
• Geochemical studies to understand mercury methylation in the waterways and marshes. 
• Stable isotope sampling to define food web linkages and better predict energy flow and contaminant bioaccumulation and biomagnification.   
• Biological and toxicological filed studies to support the ecological risk assessment. 
• Long-term monitoring of PCB and mercury concentrations in select fish and invertebrate species to assess bioaccumulation over time. 
• Documentation of human activity using camera surveys and direct observation to better define potential human exposures.  

What We Delivered

A robust and detailed understanding of contaminant movement and risk that reduced uncertainties and informed a path forward for focused and cost-effective remediation.

We provided: 

• A detailed characterization of site contamination and transport mechanisms. 
• Innovative data visualization and modeling tools to inform decision-making. 
• Technical support during stakeholder negotiations and public communications. 

The Result

Established the technical foundation for a targeted and cost-effective sediment cleanup effort that ensured protection of human health and the environment.

The RI team’s multi-faceted study documented that the tidal marshes are the ultimate repository of study area contaminants and that natural recovery is ongoing as the marshes receive cleaner sediments from regional waterways. Natural marsh vegetation provides physical stability, ensuring buried contaminants do not become re-exposed.  Further, biogeochemical and ecological processes are limiting movement and bioaccumulation of contaminants, and risks are largely limited to ecological receptors in certain portions of the waterways. The findings supported a phased remedy, focusing on waterway sediments with no active remediation in the more than 1,000 acres of marshes.