Group says New Jersey toxic waste dumping caused $1B in harm, calls settlement inadequate
A Jersey Shore environmental group says damage from decades of toxic waste dumping at one of America's most notorious pollution sites caused $1 billion worth of damages
TOMS RIVER, N.J. — Years of toxic waste dumping in a Jersey Shore community where childhood cancer rates rose caused at least $1 billion in damage to natural resources, according to an environmental group trying to overturn a settlement between New Jersey and the corporate successor to the firm that did the polluting.
Save Barnegat Bay and the township of Toms River are suing to overturn a deal between the state and German chemical company BASF under which the firm will pay $500,000 and carry out nine environmental remediation projects at the site of the former Ciba-Geigy Chemical Corporation plant.
That site became one of America's worst toxic waste dumps and led to widespread concern over the prevalence of childhood cancer cases in and around Toms River.
Save Barnegat Bay says the settlement is woefully inadequate and does not take into account the scope and full nature of the pollution.
The state Department of Environmental Protection defended the deal, saying it is not supposed to be primarily about monetary compensation; restoring damaged areas is a priority, it says.
“Ciba-Geigy’s discharges devastated the natural resources of the Toms River and Barnegat Bay,” said Michele Donato, an attorney for the environmental group. “The DEP failed to evaluate decades of evidence, including reports of dead fish, discolored waters, and toxic effluent, that exist in its own archived files.”
Those materials include documents dating back to 1958 detailing fish kills and severe oxygen depletion caused by the company's dumping of chemicals into the Toms River and
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