New Jersey, Massachusetts, EPA Close to Settlements Over Industrial Waste Sites

A federal court is weighing settlements with a South Carolina electronics company that would provide funds for cleaning up hazardous waste sites in New Jersey and Massachusetts.

The proposed consent decree between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Cornell Dubilier Electronics (CDE) would provide $4 million in funds for PCB cleanup, damages and costs at the Woodbrook Road Dump Superfund site in South Plainfield, New Jersey.

Also, the settlement would provide an additional $3.6 million for the completion of shoreline remediation of the harbor and $400,000 to the state toward the costs of the Superfund remedy at New Bedford, Massachusetts harbor.

Under the proposed $4 million settlement for the Woodbrook Road Dump Site, EPA will receive $3,361,500 for site cleanup, the U.S. Department of Interior and the state of New Jersey will receive $265,000 for natural resource damages, and the state will receive $373,500 to resolve cost recovery claims.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the Woodbrook Road Dump accepted household and industrial waste, including electrical capacitors containing PCBs, which contaminated the surrounding soil. The site was added to EPA’s priorities list in 2003. The property’s current owner, Texas Eastern Terminal Co., has removed several PCB-contaminated capacitors, secured the site, and performed a study that became the basis for EPA’s cleanup plans that now call for the removal of up to 120,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and debris and the restoration of wetlands disturbed due to the cleanup work.

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds once used in industrial and consumer products. The U.S., banned PCB production in 1978.

“This settlement places the responsibility for a portion of this cleanup where it belongs – on the polluter,” said Regional EPA Administrator Lisa F. Garcia.

The New Bedford harbor is one of the country’s Superfund sites. In addition to the CDE settlement funds, the cleanup and restoration of the harbor will also benefit from $72.7 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). The cleanup of PCBs from the harbor has been going on since 2012, when the the EPA and Massachusetts reached a $366 million settlement with AVX Corp. However, according to the EPA, by 2022 those funds were mostly depleted with shoreline remediation efforts still needing to be finished. EPA said the total cost for the harbor cleanup is approximately $1 billion, with about half of that funded by the federal and state governments.

The consent decree, filed in the federal court in New Jersey, is subject to a 60-day comment period and final approval by the court.

The consent decree anticipates payments from all insurance policies in effect from 1959 through September 1, 1983, issued to CDE, and its corporate affiliates, including Federal Pacific Electric Co., UV Industries, Inc., Reliance Electric Co. and Exxon Corp.

Topics New Jersey Massachusetts Pollution