EPA targets Bergen, Passaic counties for Passaic River dioxin cleanup. But is it enough?

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Pockets of highly contaminated Passaic River sediment in Bergen and Passaic counties would be partially excavated and capped with a barrier under plans being considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, officials said.

Cleaning up 9 miles of the Passaic — from North Arlington to the Dundee Dam in Clifton and Garfield — would not be as massive as the still-pending $1.4 billion plan to partially dredge the river's lower 8 miles from bank to bank in Newark and Hudson County. 

Instead, contractors are targeting hot spots contaminated with cancer-causing dioxin, PCBs and other industrial pollution that have made the Passaic one of the most polluted waterways in the U.S.

But the EPA's proposal to leave a portion of the pollution under a barrier — a strategy that it has often been used at other contaminated sites — has drawn criticism for both portions of the Passaic cleanup.