Coplay Aggregates’ quarry in Whitehall Township does not have fill containing high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and is in compliance with federal regulations, the federal Environmental Protection Agency has determined.

Township officials learned, in a letter received Sept. 19, the EPA had rescinded its notice of violation for excess PCBs at the quarry that it issued to the company, 5101 Beekmantown Road, in 2018.

“We are very happy to find out they have been determined to not be in violation,” Mayor Michael Harakal Jr. said Sept. 23. “Their position from the beginning was that they were not in violation - and they were right. The bottom line is we want people to know not now or ever have they been subjected to PCB exposure above the level of violation.”

Federal limits say PCB levels should not exceed 2 parts per million. According to the EPA, PCBs belong to a family of man-made organic chemicals that were manufactured and used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications from 1929 until being banned in 1979. PCBs do not readily break down once in the environment and are potentially carcinogenic.

Coplay Aggregates originally received a warning of noncompliance from the EPA in 2018, after samples taken from the quarry were alleged to contain PCB levels that measured 6.75 parts per million.

In a Sept. 19 letter to Coplay Aggregates’ director of compliance, Brian Hilliard, the EPA said it had withdrawn both its notice of noncompliance dated April 24, 2018, and its notice of violation dated Sept. 26, 2018, both of which had been sent to the company.

The letter said the EPA “has not determined that Coplay Aggregates violated the PCB regulation as described in the April 24, 2018, letter or that ‘receipt of any PCB-containing materials with PCB equal to or greater than 2 parts per million would constitute a violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act PCB regulations’ at the Coplay Aggregates site.”

“I am confident saying that the residents of Whitehall Township were not exposed to excessive PCB levels and were never at risk,” Harakal said.

Earlier this year, Hilliard told the township, although the EPA had determined no further action was necessary, Coplay Aggregates had decided to voluntarily remove the material in question. Coplay Aggregates removed a total of 202.18 tons of fill that was disposed of at the Gloucester County Authority Solid Waste Landfill in Clarksboro, N.J.

Coplay Aggregates also has said it would not be accepting any material like that in the future.

“I commend Coplay Aggregates for voluntarily removing the previously alleged materials from the Beekmantown Road site as noted in a letter to the township on Jan. 22, 2019,” Harakal said in a news release. “I look forward to continuing our working relationship with Coplay Aggregates.”

Harakal said the discrepancies may have come about because the guidelines are very specific and there are differences between Pennsylvania and federal regulations for PCBs.

The letter to Hilliard said the EPA is in the process of “evaluating these issues,” but in the interim, the current regulations will remain in effect.