THE HOME NEWS TRIBUNE

On a large tract of mostly vacant land, just east of State Street and north of the Outerbridge Crossing lays what is considered the city's most chemically polluted site.

Abandoned years ago by companies like National Lead and the American Smelting and Refining Company, the site is contaminated with lead, arsenic and other heavy metals used at the former industrial plants and dredge material deposited on the soil which seeped into the ground and Arthur Kill, creating what Mayor Joseph Vas has called "a vicious cycle of environmental contamination."

But now Perth Amboy is looking to reclaim the abandoned and underused site, remediate the property so it will generate more taxes and provide much needed jobs through a developer's plans for warehousing/distribution, office and possibly retail space at what has been named the I-Port 440 International Business Center.

READ MORE: http://www.thnt.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080311/NEWS/803110370/1001

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