Lasting pollution by Orange Agent in Newark, New Jersey, USA

Sentinel-2 MSI acquired on 24 September 2015 at 16:01:36 UTC
Sentinel-2 MSI acquired on 20 November 2015 at 15:45:42 UTC
Sentinel-2 MSI acquired on 17 February 2020 at 15:43:11 UTC
Author(s): Sentinel Vision team, VisioTerra, France - svp@visioterra.fr
Keyword(s): Land, urban, pollution, environment, river, park, United States, USA
Fig. 1 - S2 (24.09.2015) - Between 1951 & 1983, Diamond Alkali operated a chemical plant in Ironbound, Newark, on the very industrialized banks of Passaic River.
Fig. 2 - S2 (20.11.2015) - It was processing herbicides, which of 4000 m3 of Agent Orange for the Vietnam war. Its byproduct, dioxin, is extremely toxic.
Fig. 3 - S2 (20.11.2015) - Rather than excavate or incinerate the soil and debris, US Environmental Protection Agency decided it would be walled and capped.
Fig. 4 - S2 (17.02.2020) - The capped area is being developed as Newark Riverfront Park, Phase 3, upstream of Jackson Street Bridge, opened in December 2017.
Due to these decades of pollution, the river's remediation, projected in 2014 to cost ~$1.7 billion, is to be one of the largest Superfund cleanups ever proposed.