Ames Rubber feels ‘blindsided' by DEP cleanup suit

Hamburg - Chuck Roberts thought he’d been doing everything right. During his 12 years as president of Ames Rubber Corporation, he did everything state officials ordered to clean up soil and groundwater contamination the company created decades before he took over. And then, on April 13, he found that the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection was suing his company for costs associated with a cleanup that began more than 15 years ago. Roberts felt as if he’d been blindsided. “When the Department of Environmental Protection set forth a cleanup plan in the late 1980s, we agreed to follow it faithfully, and we have,” Roberts said last week. “We thought we’d identified and fixed all the problems that resulted from past practices long since halted.” Ames Rubber Corporation has made a massive effort to clean up soil and groundwater contamination that occurred in 1970s, if not earlier, he said. In the 1990s, the company installed a system of pumps and filters to treat and purify contaminated groundwater. After it is purified, the water is released into the Wallkill. Ames also has dug up and carted away contaminated soil. Roberts says he and CEO Tim Marvil are committed to proper stewardship of the environment. The lifelong Franklin resident said that as a boy he hunted in the fields outside Franklin Borough and fished in the Wallkill, and he wants to do what’s right for the environment. State environmental officials said they could not comment on the situation because it is the subject of litigation. The company’s headquarters are situated on 20 acres of land on the banks of the Wallkill, just past the Route 94 bridge into Hamburg. Among other products, Ames manufacturers rubber parts for Xerox, Hewlett Packard, and Lexmark printers and copiers, as well as parts for the gas masks the armed forces use in Iraq and elsewhere. Recently, Ames has been looking into making leakproof gaskets for the fuel cell market. Although it’s been at least 30 years since the company allowed PCBs and solvents such as toluene and trichloroethane to escape into the earth and groundwater, environmental officials are asking a judge to order Ames to repay the state for all past and future cleanup costs and to “compensate the citizens of New Jersey for the injury to their natural resources.” “Although the defendant has initiated the remediation of the Ames Rubber site, the ground water, soils and surface water remain contaminated,” the suit specifies. Twenty-two years ago, Department of Environmental Protection scientists inspected the site and discovered that the company had been releasing contaminants into the groundwater without a permit and at levels higher than state regulations allowed. Ames attorney Norman Spindel said that if the Department of Environmental Protection has had any problems with Ames during the past five years, he is unaware of them. “I can tell you only that they allege still-existing ground water contamination at the site, but my client did get a permit and has been undertaking approved remedial activity, based on DEP’s allegation that the use of the ground water has been compromised and a natural resource has been damaged,” Spindel said. The attorney said that although he hadn’t yet pored over the complaint, it appeared that certain allegations it contains might not be scientifically sound. “From my perspective, Ames always has been environmentally conscious, aware of their place in the environment, and has always acted in a responsible and ecologically sound way,” he said. “Ames management always has understood that manufacturing and business must coexist harmoniously with the environment.” Spindel remarked that neither he nor company officials had any idea the lawsuit was coming, or that the Department of Environmental Protection had approached Ames any time recently to express concerns. “I’m confident that if there had been such an approach, Ames management would have let me know,” Spindel concluded. Ames is one of Sussex County’s major employers as well as one of Hamburg’s largest taxpayers. In 2005, the company paid Hamburg Borough about $100,000 in taxes. The company employs about 245 workers, the majority of whom come from Sussex County, and has three plants in the county: the headquarters in Hamburg, a plant in Wantage and another in Vernon. Amisil, a company affiliate, is located in Oakridge in Morris County. Roberts became president of Ames in 1994 and his career now spans over 30 years with the company. During his tenure, he has witnessed the ebbs and flows typical of any company that’s stayed in business for over 57 years. Although business for Ames dropped off in the late 1990s and early 2000s as a result of competition from foreign companies, the company is making an excellent recovery, the president said. “We didn’t have to lay off anyone last year and we don’t expect to lay off anyone this year,” Roberts remarked. Roberts spent all 12 years of elementary and secondary education at the Franklin School and was baptized, confirmed, and married at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Franklin. He grew up with some of the people who now work at Ames. “We have some employees whose fathers and grandfathers worked at Ames. This is a very much a family company. Here, we call everyone ‘teammates,’” Roberts said. Back in the 1980s, Roberts explained, Ames wasn’t the company it might have been. The managers vowed to turn the company around to give it the competitive edge they believed would be possible. “Since then, we’ve instituted the Ames Excellence Programs - a total quality initiative - and we’ve become a showcase for our good marketing strategy, our leadership, and our sustained high-quality performance,” Roberts noted. In 1993, President Bill Clinton awarded Ames the Malcolm Baldridge Award, which recognizes companies that improve the quality of their goods and services and provide an example to others. Recently, Ames began exploring a new venture, making leakproof gaskets for fuel cells. A fuel cell is an electrical cell that produces electricity through a chemical reaction similar to that found in a battery. Fuel cells generate electricity without combustion and without producing noise or pollution. The cells are used on satellites and for silent-power generators for military special operations. With new leading-edge projects on the horizon, Ames has a bright future, Roberts said. “We’ve been here a long time, and we are pledged to being a good corporate citizen,” he said. “We expect to be here for a long time to come in our role as a major growth company that’s committed to employing people from this area.”