Eric Moses, a spokesperson for global chemical manufacturer OxyChem, indicated in a Jan. 25 statement to Federal Newswire that the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed settlement for the cleanup of New Jersey's Passaic River only covers a portion of the total funding needed for remediation. This could potentially leave taxpayers to cover the remaining costs. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has declined to comment on this matter.
"The settlement amount remains only $150 million – a fraction of the $1.82 billion EPA estimates the cleanup will cost," Moses said. "EPA continues to sidestep basic questions, such as how much each of the settling companies will pay. OxyChem rejects EPA’s compromised analysis, edited by the settling parties, riddled with math and science errors and contrived to assign liability wrongly to one company. As the only company that has stepped forward to perform cleanup work in the Passaic, OxyChem will continue to advocate for what common sense and the law require: that all responsible parties – not the public – pay for the cleanup of the Passaic River."
The Lower Passaic River is part of the Diamond Alkali Superfund site, as per information on EPA's website. The river is contaminated with toxins including dioxin and polychlorinated biphenyls due to industrial activity in its vicinity. The website states: "EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice announce a proposed consent decree, a legal document, with 85 potentially responsible parties, requiring them to pay a total of $150 million to support the cleanup work and resolve their liability for discharging hazardous substances into the Lower Passaic River."
In November 2023, Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim filed court documents indicating that Department of Justice (DOJ) would be modifying the proposed consent decree and removing several parties. The DOJ said that the modified consent decree will be submitted by Jan. 31.
Assemblywoman Beth Sawyer, representing New Jersey's third legislative district, expressed concern over the difference between the amount of funding dictated by the consent decree versus the estimated funding required to clean the Superfund site. She was quoted as saying, "The EPA’s settlement left a huge gap between the total cleanup costs and the costs polluters have agreed to pay. That gap will have to be paid by others – and will likely fall onto the taxpayers of the municipalities whose river was polluted or to residents of the State of New Jersey," Sawyer said. "As bad as this particular settlement is, it could set a precedent for future Superfund sites in New Jersey. Our state has more Superfund sites than any other. Are New Jersey taxpayers going to have to foot the bill for all of those cleanups?"
OxyChem, as reported by ChemPoint, is a global chemical manufacturer whose products are used in various sectors including electronics, pharmaceuticals, and disinfectants. OxyChem has its headquarters in Texas and operates throughout the U.S., as well as in six other countries.
