It's been more than 40 years since public health fears emerged in Gloucester County surrounding the Lipari Landfill landfill, where illegally dumped chemicals created what the EPA called the most toxic site in America a poster child for the nation's pollution problems.

Well, fast forward to today.

And now, after lengthy efforts from environmental groups, that dump has been cleaned up.

Federal, state and local officials today celebrated the landfills removal from the Superfund list, touting a victory decades in the making.

Senior correspondent Brenda Flanagan has more on what it took to get here.

Well, it was the first Superfund cleanup in the state, I believe.

A lot of people use it now.

This place is always busy with people, canoes and kayaks.

Bob Hales now casting for bass here at Halcyon Lake, where 40 years ago, fish died from a witch's brew of toxic poisons leaking out of a pit at nearby Lipari Landfill that then low power top the nation's Superfund site list.

A six acre chemical cauldron in Gloucester County where companies dumped 155 carcinogens, heavy metals, pesticide residues and benzene.

Alarmed, Pittman residents organized and fought back.

They told PBS reporters, we're fighting for our lives, for our health.

We have seen greenish streams coming down.

We have seen big globs of black things.

I couldn't begin to identify what they are.

The stench is so tremendous.

Well, he's a little scary because we didn't have the answers, and that was our whole reason we got involved.

Pat Stewart and her husband, Doug, stepped up to lead the town in a years long battle to get the landfill and the lake it had before cleaned up.

Lipari Landfill isn't even in our community.

We're downstream.

We were the victims and we took action to correct.

It took us a lot longer, we realized.

Today, the couple joined a victory party at Pitman's Betty Park, right alongside Elkhorn Lake.

It's been transformed, and the EPA officially removed the landfill from its list of Superfund sites.

The EPA is officially deleting the Lipari Landfill from the National Priorities.

But to get here took four decades and $300 million, and the kind of dogged perseverance that moves not just tons of toxic sediment, but also entrenched federal bureaucracy.

Pittman's health and safety hung in the balance.

Incredibly crucial.

And I think that's why so many from our community spoke up and spoke out, to make sure that this project happened, to make sure it was followed through with the EPA and the EPA.

It really was the community that fought so hard to make sure that, that the government paid attention to the contamination, to the to the issues going on in the landfill to bring this property.

This link back to what you see right now, Jersey has got 114 Superfund sites, more than any other state.

The EPA listed more than 1300 on its National Priorities List.

42 additional sites have been proposed for entry and almost 460 removed, including Lipari Landfill.

What I think most folks don't recognize is that the reason we have the most Superfund sites in the nation is that we care enough to seek them out, and when we do, we clean them up, right?

It's a mark not of indignity, but of resolve.

The late Congressman Florio passed the Superfund in 1980.

We he's championed our our site la party was number one.

And so we you we all we learned that too.

Squeaky wheel gets some results.

The Stewarts urged the EPA to fast track a clean up.

The agency admitted its original containment wall still leaked and inform nearby residents that some chemicals also admitted toxic vapors.

Back then, a terrified Pat Stewart told PBS the 79 I was pregnant.

I mean, we were always down by the lake.

You know, I kept saying, you know what he told me this.

He said, they didn't tell me then.

So what aren't they telling me now?

And that's what I used to get really upset and start crying.

Over the years, Department of Health Studies linked chemical vapors admitted at Lipari to leukemia cases in adults and to low birth weight in neighborhoods around the expanded 16 acre site with its toxic swamp.

Some people lived just yards away or right downstream.

Unlike more remote landfills like Edison's Ken Buck, an isolated industrial waste Superfund dump site, Lipari presented immediate hazards to humans.

Congressman Donald Norcross worked the cleanup site as an apprentice, he recalls.

They handed me a white suit and I looked him and said, what is this work?

Don't worry about it.

Just put it on.

You can still see how the EPA mitigated pollution.

At Lipari, a network of pipes criss crosses the landfill, which is now fully contained by an underground slurry wall and sealed with an impervious cap.

Special wells extract toxic vapors from within the central pit and pipe them to a treatment center.

Staff constantly monitors the air flow, which gets scrubbed by super carbon filters.

Meanwhile, a different system of pipes powered by four main pumps moves groundwater that collection French drains buried along the perimeter.

The once polluted Chestnut Branch Brook along Lipari now flows clear and fish swim.

Wild flowers bloom amidst test wells that dot the site.

EPA officials say after years of flushing and intense treatment, water removed from the landfill now only requires a pH adjustment before it's sent to the local municipal sewage plant for final processing.

But it took decades.

Not to say that there weren't some moments where you scratch your head and wondered, how is this going to finally come to fruition?

For Pitman?

But in the end, it did work out.

The massive cleanup also included dredging Elkhorn Lake and two streams, dewatering the soil and disposing of the contaminants.

They even took care to preserve the turtles.

Lakeside homes now command premium prices, and Pitman developed a couple of lakeside parks that residents enjoy today.

I'm happy for the town.

I'm happy that our community made a difference.

It's certainly improved the fishing, Bob says.

There's been some big bass caught in here.

Some very nice sized bass.

A lot of Sonny's bluegills.

That's what I go for.

Lipari landfill may be off the Superfund list, but caretakers remain on constant alert.

Groundwater, surface water, and the air will be monitored for years.

To make sure that people and the environment stay safe.

In Pitman I'm Brenda Flanagan.

NJ Spotlight News.