EPA lands $150M for Passaic River cleanup, fraction of $1.4B cost. So who pays the rest?
Dozens of companies that have polluted the Passaic River agreed last week to pay $150 million toward one of the most expensive environmental cleanups in U.S. history.
While the amount has been described as a "landmark" settlement by some, it represents only 11% of the $1.4 billion price tag to remove cancer-causing dioxin, PCBs, mercury and other industrial pollutants that have remained buried for decades in the riverbed.
"I can say right off the top that the settlement seems very low, particularly in light of the number of parties involved and the overall cost of the work," said Michele Langa, who co-chairs a community group that advises the federal Environmental Protection Agency on the cleanup.
Officials at the EPA said they are still conducting enforcement proceedings with other "private parties that are responsible for a larger share of the cleanup costs." That includes Occidental Chemical Corp. of Texas, which inherited the liability of the former Diamond Alkali plant in Newark, whose workers dumped dioxin into the river while making the infamous Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange.
Getting the money to conduct such a massive and complicated project has held up actual cleanup. The plan was announced almost nine years ago with great fanfare by EPA leaders as one of the largest Superfund cleanups in the program's 40-year history.
On Friday, EPA officials announced the agreement with 85 companies, saying it was an important step toward the bank-to-bank plan to remove and cap pollution from Newark Bay for 17 miles upstream to the Dundee Dam, which spans the river between Clifton and Garfield.
The companies involved in the deal sit along the banks of the Passaic and range from small to medium-sized mom-and-pop operations to multinational corporations and well-known brands including General Electric, Honeywell, Pfizer, Benjamin Moore, Tiffany, Otis Elevator and Pabst Brewing. A full list is below.
EPA Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia said in a statement that the money "brings us closer to a cleaner healthier river that can be enjoyed by those who live near its banks."
But there still appears to be a very long road ahead.
There is no timeline yet for when work might start, said EPA spokesman Stephen McBay, even though Occidental agreed to design a cleanup plan for $165 million six years ago. The EPA still needs to approve that plan once it's completed, McBay said.
Langa, an environmental attorney for NY/NJ Baykeeper and Hackensack Riverkeeper who sits on the community advisory board for the project, said, "I expect that any settlement with Occidental will be significant as well, but that is a very large gap to fill."
U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., a longtime advocate for the cleanup, offered muted praise for the settlement, calling it "an important step." But he cautioned that taxpayers should never foot the bill. "Forcing our neighbors to mop up the messes of others would be adding insult to injury and that cannot happen," he said in a statement.
The settlement filed in U.S. District Court set off a war of words between representatives of the 85 companies and Occidental Chemical.
Eric Moses, a spokesman for Occidental Chemical, blasted the settlement, saying the low figure will delay the restoration of the river and allow some of the companies to avoid paying their fair share of the cleanup.
The EPA "is sending a message that companies are better off denying responsibility for Superfund cleanups than cooperating and performing the necessary work," Moses said.
Jeffrey Talbert, a lawyer for the 85 companies, said Occidental should pick up the majority of the tab because it bears the most responsibility.
“Mountains of scientific data, accumulated through years and countless studies, clearly showed the principal actor, and documented what it did, to create one of the biggest environmental scars of our country,” Talbert said.
Paying up?
Below is a list of 85 companies that agreed to pay $150 million toward the cleanup of the Passaic River.
21st Century Fox America
Alden Leeds
Alliance Chemical
Arkema Inc.
Ashland Inc.
Atlantic Richfield Company
Atlas Refinery
BASF Corporation
Benjamin Moore & Co.
Newell Brands
Canning Gumm
Paramount Global
CNA Holdings
Chevron
Coats & Clark
Congoleum Corporation
Conopco
Cooper Industries
Covanta Essex Company
Croda
Curtiss-Wright
Darling Ingredients
DII Industries
DPC Settling Parties
Elan Chemical
EM Sergeant Pulp & Chemical Company
EnPro Holdings
EPEC Polymers
Essex Chemical Corporation
Everett Smith Group
Fiske Brothers Refining
Flexon Industries
Franklin-Burlington Plastics
Garfield Molding
General Electric
Givaudan Fragrances
Goodrich Corporation
L3Harris Technologies
Harrison Supply Company
The Hartz Consumer Group
Hexcel
Hoffmann-La Roche
Honeywell International
ISP Chemicals
Kearny Smelting & Refining
Leemilt’s Petroleum
Legacy Vulcan
Mallinckrodt LLC
National-Standard
Neu Holdings
The Newark Group
Newark Morning Ledger
Newell Brands Inc
Novelis Corporation
The Okonite Company
Otis Elevator
Pabst Brewing
Palin Enterprises
Passaic Pioneer Properties
Pfizer
Pitt-Consol Chemical Company
PPG Industries
Purdue Pharma
Quality Carriers
Revere Smelting and Refining
Royce Associates
RTC Properties
S&A Realty
Safety-Kleen Envirosystems
Schiffenhaus Packaging Corp.
Sequa Corporation
Spectraserv Inc.
Stanley Black & Decker
STWB Inc.
Sun Chemical
Primary Products Ingredients
Teva Pharmaceuticals
Teval Corporation
Textron, Inc.
KAO USA Inc
Messer LLC
Sherwin-Williams
Three County Volkswagen
Tiffany and Company
Wyeth
Source: EPA documents
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: EPA gets $150M for $1.4B Passaic River cleanup. Who will pay the rest?
