Bayer to pay $1 million for pollution
Aspirin giant Bayer has agreed to pay the state $1 million for polluting groundwater at a former dye plant in Haledon.
The settlement is the second-biggest in two years under the state Department of Environmental Protection’s natural resource damage program, according to the Bergen Record.
In the past year, the state has collected a reported $4 million as a result of this and other similar settlements. Below are some major ones (from the Asbury Park Press):
Lucent Technologies has agreed to pay a $1.2 million settlement to the state for groundwater contamination at nine sites it owns in Holmdel, Berkeley Heights, Chester, Chester Township, Hanover and Kearny, state Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson announced Wednesday.
As part of a consent decree addressing groundwater contamination, Southern Ocean Landfill arranged for the donation of 195 acres of forest as a groundwater recharge area. The wooded area is adjacent to the landfill located in Ocean Township (Waretown) in Ocean County, and is near two state wildlife management areas, Greenwood Forest and Forked River Mountain.
…South Jersey Gas Co. of Folsom in Atlantic County, which agreed to provide a conservation easement on a 149-acre property in Folsom and to provide $549,200 to preserve 159 acres in Buena Vista, Mullica and Oldmans townships.
The settled natural resource damage liability resulted from groundwater contamination at a dozen sites of predecessor companies that once derived gas from coal. The coal-gasification facilities were located in Atlantic City, Bridgeton, Egg Harbor City, Glassboro, Hammonton, Millville, Penns Grove, Pleasantville, Vineland and Woolwich.
The 3M Co. of St. Paul, Minn., which settled a complaint resulting from the disposal of chemical wastes at the Woodland dump sites in Burlington County in the 1950s and 1960s. 3M agreed to pay the state $315,000 for resource damages and is donating 154 acres of woodlands in Buena Vista Township, Atlantic County, as a groundwater recharge area.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:46 pm
“The second biggest in two years”!
That spin for sure. The NRD program has been in existence since the Whitman Administration.
It was greatly ramped up during the McGreevey Administration, but then scaled back in response to political pressure and litigation by polluters..
Corzine allowed a statute of imitations to expire (McGreevey had passed legislation twice to block SoL) and DEP has scaled back the NRD program -
This latest group of settlements are peanuts - see:
NEW JERSEY FORFEITS HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN POLLUTION DAMAGES — Court Ruling Faults DEP for Failure to Enact Rules to Compensate Public
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=930