Old Foundry Water Tower Ruins??
- Thread starter GAK
- Start date
Topo
https://boydsmaps.com/#16.00/39.836513/-74.507258/pines2023/0.00/0.00
1980's aerial
https://boydsmaps.com/#17.00/39.836717/-74.507132/pines1980/0.00/0.00
2002 aerial
https://boydsmaps.com/#19.00/39.837020/-74.507153/njgin2002/0.00/0.00
All gone but the water tower by 2007
https://boydsmaps.com/#19.00/39.836717/-74.507132/njgin2007/0.00/0.00
Parcel data
https://boydsmaps.com/pines/#16/39.836513/-74.507258/parcels07/0/0/
https://boydsmaps.com/#16.00/39.836513/-74.507258/pines2023/0.00/0.00
1980's aerial
https://boydsmaps.com/#17.00/39.836717/-74.507132/pines1980/0.00/0.00
2002 aerial
https://boydsmaps.com/#19.00/39.837020/-74.507153/njgin2002/0.00/0.00
All gone but the water tower by 2007
https://boydsmaps.com/#19.00/39.836717/-74.507132/njgin2007/0.00/0.00
Parcel data
https://boydsmaps.com/pines/#16/39.836513/-74.507258/parcels07/0/0/
So is this site considered a superfund site? Is it a toxic area? Is zinc in unhealthy amounts there? Didn't see private property signs. But will never go back. Was there very briefly and walked around then left. Thanks for any info.
I don't see it listed in the NJDEP Known Contaminated Sites dataset. Of course, that is not definitive...
https://gisdata-njdep.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/njdep::known-contaminated-site-list-for-new-jersey/explore?location=39.834204,-74.519378,14.36
(OT: looks like NJGIN has updated their software, and we can now link to specific places on the maps of these datasets which wasn't possible in the past. Cool.
)
https://gisdata-njdep.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/njdep::known-contaminated-site-list-for-new-jersey/explore?location=39.834204,-74.519378,14.36
(OT: looks like NJGIN has updated their software, and we can now link to specific places on the maps of these datasets which wasn't possible in the past. Cool.
)Thank you kindly for the DEP info. Will come in handy. We are fine for now. Just spooked by all this.I don't see it listed in the NJDEP Known Contaminated Sites dataset. Of course, that is not definitive...
https://gisdata-njdep.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/njdep::known-contaminated-site-list-for-new-jersey/explore?location=39.834204,-74.519378,14.36
(OT: looks like NJGIN has updated their software, and we can now link to specific places on the maps of these datasets which wasn't possible in the past. Cool.
My buddy and I were freaked a little because of slight metallic taste in our mouths after we left. I wouldn't recommend anyone venture back there. Like you said. What else is there? Lead, asbestos? I hope not. We'll stick to the older sites like ROG that we also visited that same day. We have been going to the Pines since the 1980's, driving thru, shooting clays w shotguns, etc. Started all this historic explorations stuff only 2 years ago. Many thanks to you All from all of us.
Last edited:
Don't know anything about that place but my mom grew up in Palmerton, Pa., home of giant zinc factories and it was truly bizarre to visit when I was a kid. The mountainside was completely barren, just red dirt, and nothing grew in the town. People would be thrilled if they could get a small stand of weeds to grow in their yard. My grandmother was in complete denial, saying the chemicals in the air must be healthy because there were so many older people in town (I think it was more like everyone young getting out as soon as they could). Once the Superfund program started it was obviously one of the first places identified and I think they've done a lot of remediation since.
Zinc chloride toxicity (cf. the link to 1942 operations) is acute; it appears to be the result of hydrolysis to zinc oxychloride and hydrochloric acid, the latter of which will burn mucous membranes, etc. Zinc contamination is bad for aquatic life (high concentrations may affect the embryonic development of various species) but it's fairly harmless to humans when ingested, hence the market for zinc gluconate supplements.
In the mid-Atlantic, zinc contamination is associated with vulcanized fiber manufacturing (which used zinc chloride baths to fuse sheets of paper into a sort of primitive plastic) and smelters like the one at Palmerton, or Monaca in western Pennsylvania. IIRC, zinc ores tend to occur as sulfides, so smelting them also released corrosive sulfuric acid vapors, as well as exciting and nastier co-occurring metals like cadmium and lead. It was impossible to remove all the contamination from the face of Blue Mountain at Palmerton due to the terrain, so they actually wound up airdropping a bunch of soil and turning it into a sort of rocky savannah with relatively metal-resistant flora. One Appalachian species (wild bleeding-heart, S1 or S1.1 in New Jersey) apparently thrives under these conditions and is quite abundant at both smelter sites. See this excellent report for more than you ever wanted to know about zinc smelting in the mid-Atlantic.
So I wouldn't be too worried about the health effects of zinc exposure at the site. It's possible that there were other contaminants from smaller-scale things (e.g., cleaning equipment with a chlorinated solvent and dumping it on the ground) but Bob's suggestion that any peculiar sensations were due to anxiety is probably the most reasonable explanation.
Chemicals percolating through the soil and contaminating the aquifer make for big and messy cleanups, but walking around a site like that is not likely to cause exposure. That said, I'd probably try to avoid bringing home dust from sites contaminated by the nastier heavy metals (lead, cadmium, nickel come to mind) or by asbestos fibers. (Well, OK, I did visit the tailings dumps at an asbestos mine once, but those are pretty safe as the asbestos was thoroughly separated by flotation before the tailings were dumped--when the environmental people have pictures of themselves scurrying over the piles without moonsuits, it's probably OK.)
In the mid-Atlantic, zinc contamination is associated with vulcanized fiber manufacturing (which used zinc chloride baths to fuse sheets of paper into a sort of primitive plastic) and smelters like the one at Palmerton, or Monaca in western Pennsylvania. IIRC, zinc ores tend to occur as sulfides, so smelting them also released corrosive sulfuric acid vapors, as well as exciting and nastier co-occurring metals like cadmium and lead. It was impossible to remove all the contamination from the face of Blue Mountain at Palmerton due to the terrain, so they actually wound up airdropping a bunch of soil and turning it into a sort of rocky savannah with relatively metal-resistant flora. One Appalachian species (wild bleeding-heart, S1 or S1.1 in New Jersey) apparently thrives under these conditions and is quite abundant at both smelter sites. See this excellent report for more than you ever wanted to know about zinc smelting in the mid-Atlantic.
So I wouldn't be too worried about the health effects of zinc exposure at the site. It's possible that there were other contaminants from smaller-scale things (e.g., cleaning equipment with a chlorinated solvent and dumping it on the ground) but Bob's suggestion that any peculiar sensations were due to anxiety is probably the most reasonable explanation.
Chemicals percolating through the soil and contaminating the aquifer make for big and messy cleanups, but walking around a site like that is not likely to cause exposure. That said, I'd probably try to avoid bringing home dust from sites contaminated by the nastier heavy metals (lead, cadmium, nickel come to mind) or by asbestos fibers. (Well, OK, I did visit the tailings dumps at an asbestos mine once, but those are pretty safe as the asbestos was thoroughly separated by flotation before the tailings were dumped--when the environmental people have pictures of themselves scurrying over the piles without moonsuits, it's probably OK.)