Bridgeport Rental and Oil Services

The Bridgeport Rental and Oil Services site, also known as BROS, is a 30-acre parcel of land, formerly used as a waste oil storage and recovery facility, located in Logan Township two miles southeast of the Delaware River. The property consists of a 100-vessel tank farm and 13-acre waste oil and wastewater lagoon. The lagoon was used for waste disposal between the 1960s and 1981. The lagoon became a “toxic soup” of waste material. Spills and leaks from the facility have contaminated groundwater and adjacent wetlands.

National attention focused on BROS when, in 1977, a welder’s torch ignited an accumulation of chemicals at the waste storage facility, causing a large explosion. Fires raged for more than 10 hours, sending a plume of black smoke up into the sky. Six people died and 35 people were hospitalized due to the accident, as storage cylinders exploded, flying hundreds of feet through the air. Many environmental advocates, policy analysts, and historians see this event and several other similar events throughout the country as inspiring federal Superfund legislation.

Due to public health concerns, EPA tested the site and areas around the site and found groundwater contamination. In 1983, the BROS site was placed on the National Priorities List (the Superfund list). EPA authorized the first phase of remediation and cleanup in 1984, which consisted of determining the nature and extent of soil contamination and evaluating the remedial alternatives. In 1988, EPA initiated a second phase to determine the extent of groundwater contamination but never completed it, due to ongoing negotiations between the federal agency and the potentially responsible parties.

From 1992 to 1996, 172,000 tons of hazardous waste were excavated from the toxic lagoon. More than 190 million gallons of contaminated water were treated and 10,000 tons of contaminated debris were disposed off-site. The EPA and NJDEP learned a lot from their efforts at BROS, employing new technologies that were used subsequently at other sites in the United States.

While cleanup, demobilization, and stabilization efforts were completed in 1996, the second phase of testing groundwater and remediation has yet to be initiated. In 1996, EPA, with the aid of the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of New Jersey, reached a settlement with 90 companies and governmental agencies that had sent waste to the BROS site. These 90 entities will contribute more than $221.5 million to help cover expended and future cleanup costs and fund a complete study of the groundwater and wetlands contamination. BROS has proven to be the most expensive and technically challenging site of the Superfund remediation program.

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