a toxic cleanup is underway in Monmouth County where hundreds of chemical waste drums were found leaking and abandoned at a former industrial site schools and homeowners in the area have been given evacuation plans in case of emergency the Environmental Protection Agency began the cleanup in early April and says there's no immediate threat to nearby residents but it's still unclear just what type of chemicals are leaking and the hazards they pose senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan reports workers in protective gear labored to contain contaminated industrial site in Monmouth County stacked around the abandoned eight-acre complex more than 400 damaged Drums of suspected hazardous material stored here possibly for decades the EPA is running this as an emergency Superfund cleanup says site coordinator Michael Menino right now our short-term focus is securing all the drums that may be leaking or in poor condition we over pack them in effectively a larger drum and also just identifying what type of hazardous materials could be found in these containers machines pack dilapidated drums and dirt inside the new drums to be tested and hauled to disposal dumps scenes like this alarmed residents who worry about air and water quality Howell Township quickly established an evacuation plan for folks living up to a mile away City Rays still worried the safety concerns were also for the people who live in the area in the event of a worst case scenario the evacuation Zone um there are three schools within the evacuation Zone in excess of 4 000 students a matter of fact it's more secure now than has been in Prior decades Victor duration Maps caution not an order EPA set up air monitors and tested groundwater 500 yards away finding no contamination so far the EPA is working on site every day and when they're not working we have a security firm that comes in here and guards the property tonight and it's fully fenced in the response that I'm seeing now fantastic EPA has stepped up they've done everything we've asked to help us with Outreach community outreach the property impacts residents in both Howell and nearby Farmingdale Compounders opened in 1996 mixing and melting wax resin and asphalt it's the asphalt that officials suspect caught fire in an Old Furnace here back in February drawing firefighters who discovered the site abandoned and littered with drums but it's far from the first problem for Compounders back in 2002 the dep responded to a chemical fire here and reported finding stacked drums some containing tce and vinyl chloride don't you think this should have been resolve though decades ago literally absolutely should have been resolved decades ago the dep in March and April levied more than a million dollars in fines against Compounders charging it operated the facility without proper permits failed to minimize the possibility of fire explosion and hazardous waste didn't complete site remediation and close and sold the company to a new LLC called Marl 15 without proper notice to Regulators some violations go back more than a decade residents want answers it slips through the cracks and nothing was done they've known that the property owner had financial difficulties and even getting this work done decades ago so there was no impetus on the property owner to get this work done considering they had no money to get it done the dep needs to find out who was responsible who dropped the ball and their oversight process and if criminal charges are warranted to bring them to the owners and to Marl 15 LLC farmingdale's Water Supplies unaffected but how will residents want private Wells tested they want more transparency the epa's working on it so far a lot of the drums seem to be related to the former site operations we're doing mostly Fields categorization we will eventually be sending samples out for a lab analysis he estimates it could take six to eight months to get answers we got no reply from Marl 15's business agent in Howell I'm Brenda Flanagan NJ Spotlight News [Music]