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1228 MLK Boulevard Trenton, NJ

13:25 Oct 22 2013 1228 Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard, Trenton, NJ 08638, USA

Description
Cities are like people: they grow over time, they can be tall, wide, or both, and they certainly produce a lot of waste. Thanks to the Industrial Revolution, Trenton, New Jersey underwent quite a growth spurt in the past one hundred years. Increased industry has brought more people to the city over the years, but such increases can be a double-edged sword.
Increased industry lures more people, and greater numbers of people means that there are more hands both to build and to work at factories. More factories means more contamination throughout the surrounding neighborhoods. Homes that were once pristine are now contaminated by chemicals that spewed from factories that began to pop up around Trenton in the past one hundred years.
Today at the tip of northern Trenton lies 1228 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, formerly 1228 Princeton Avenue. Even at the close of the nineteenth century, there was a home located at 1228 Princeton Ave. Years later, in 1920, two men by the names of Albert and John Schlapfer lived in that home. Albert worked at a rubber factory, and John was a driver.
Two blocks from their home was the office of H.C. Kafer & Co. brickyard which still stands at 1001 Princeton Avenue. Even less than one block from the Schlapfer residence was “a composition of six interdependent units paired by gables and parapets” (Trenton Historical Society Website). Although there is not much information about the Schlapfer home, it is likely that it was of a similar style to the homes in that composition.
Within a few blocks of the home were factories that produced materials such as pottery, porcelain, rubber and steel. Leakage from these factories spread by rainfall, and this mixture of rainwater and waste contaminated both the soil and groundwater nearby.
Although the official date of the initial contamination at 1228 MLK is unknown, the first document noting a contamination was created on November 11, 2005. On November 17 of that year, note of a remedial groundwater and soil contamination was released.
Nearly a month later, the Remedial Action Report was sent out on December 7, and on the same date remedial action was begun. Two days later an NJPDES Permit-by-Rule was issued.
There is no evidence of a current contamination at 1228 MLK Boulevard, but there is also no record of a cleanup since those documents were released in 2005. This inference is bolstered by the issuance of a Final Notice Letter on June 13, 2013, indicating that in the eight years since the initial issuance, nothing has been done.
According to 2012 Trenton tax records, Homer, 81, and Thelma Porter, 70, live at 1228 MLK Boulevard, and the home that currently exists at the site was built in 1910.
If a city is analogous to a person, then the homes and people are analogous to the cells. If homes are contaminated, and if people are sick, then cells of the city as are also contaminated. As more homes become contaminated, and more people become sick, the city slowly begins to decline. People either miss work owing to sickness, or they go to work and spread the disease.
The contamination of a single cell can lead to the sickness of an entire body, and similarly, soil and groundwater contamination can spread like a virus and affect large portions of a city’s soil and, therefore, homeowners.
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