AVI STEINHARDT/Courier-Post Robin Perkins of East Camden was upset to learn that the dirt berms in her neighborhood contain low levels of contaminants. State officials insist the dirt is safe.

The huge piles of dirt NJ Transit has quietly amassed along its light rail line here are contaminated with low levels of benzene, PCBs, cadmium, lead and other hazardous materials, the state Department of Environmental Protection has disclosed.

The dirt poses no threat to residents, however, provided it has been properly capped or covered with clean fill, said DEP spokesman Fred Mumford.

The mountainous piles stand higher than three-story rowhouses in some spots, as wide as a football field in others. They stretch for about a quarter of a mile between the Pavonia freight yard and a residential neighborhood in East Camden.

NJ Transit, which has not previously mentioned the contaminants in the dirt, confirmed their presence Friday but indicated the piles are capped and safe.

"We tested the soils and they passed the test," said Penny Bassett Hackett, a spokeswoman for the agency.

Residents in the East Camden neighborhood reacted angrily to the disclosure.

"How come they didn't let us know?" asked Robin Perkins, who lives a block from the piles. "If you're going to put any level of contamination in there, you should let people know."

NJ Transit officials said the excess dirt, left over from the agency's construction of its 34-mile Camden-to-Trenton light rail line, is intended to serve as a sound barrier.

The agency held no public hearings before it began trucking in the dirt last year, nor did it consult city officials.

"They didn't tell us anything," said City Councilman Frank Moran, who represents East Camden and first raised questions about the berms in February.

Bassett Hackett, asked why there had been no hearings or consultations, said, "it's not customary."

That's a contention disputed in East Camden.

"You think they'd do this in Cherry Hill or Mount Laurel and not hold a hearing?" asked Joe Rivers, who lives on Thompson Street with Perkins.

The berms, separated from the neighborhood by fences in some places, are accessible at other spots and have been used for play by neighborhood children and others, residents said.

Other than some smaller mounds in Roebling, which stand perhaps 10 feet high, the berms in Camden are the only ones along the line.

Moran said he plans to launch an investigation to "get to the bottom of all this."

Literally getting to the bottom would be a daunting task.

Bassett Hackett placed the amount of dirt in the berms at 123,670 cubic yards, which, by the calculation of a local excavator, would have required about 8,000 trips by large, tri-axle dump trucks to move.

NJ Transit officials said the piles were placed in Camden because most of the dirt is from the city, so it was only logical to keep it there.

"We didn't have to haul the dirt too far and we used it to improve the neighborhood," Richard Sarles, NJ Transit's assistant executive director, said in March.

Earlier this month, he estimated the portion of dirt that originated in Camden at 85 percent.

But there's disagreement over what kind of excavation produced the dirt.

"It's part of the excavations from the new track bed and from parking lots and roadways," said Howard Menaker, a spokesman for the South Jersey Rail Group, which is building the line.

However, Bassett Hackett said in March that the dirt came mainly from installing a fiber-optic cable, utility lines and a drainage system.

On Friday she said NJ Transit was "rechecking all the information" before responding to a request, made 10 days earlier, for a precise accounting on the origins of the dirt.

Mumford, at the DEP, said it's not unusual for low levels of contamination to be found in soil. Often such soil is taken to a landfill, he said, but it can also be reused on site, provided it's capped with clean soil.

The purpose of the cap is not to protect groundwater, which isn't jeopardized by contaminants at such low levels, but to "prevent exposure to dust, to prevent any ingestion or inhalation," Mumford said.

Mary Muse, who lives across the street from one of the mounds, said she was disturbed by the news that there are contaminants in the dirt because "my son does quite a bit of running."

"He's been running those hills to build his leg muscles," said Muse, 60, of her 33-year-old son.

"I had no idea there would be any toxins at all in there," she said. "Why would they put those kind of contents in a residential neighborhood?"