New Jersey state officials are moving forward with plans to increase environmental enforcement lawsuits. In what he described as a “new day,” Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced the filing of six separate lawsuits on August 1, 2018. In a statement, Attorney General Grewal said “We’re sending a message to every company across the state: if you pollute our natural resources, we’re going to make you pay.”
Three of the lawsuits are aimed at recovering damages for the harm caused by pollution to properties, groundwater, and waterways across the state, and three of the suits seek to recover the costs the State has paid in conducting environmental clean-ups.
The three natural resource damages cases involve a plume of TCE-contaminated groundwater in the Pohatcong Valley of Warren County, the contaminated Deull Fuel property in Atlantic City, and the contaminated Port Reading Amerada Hess property in Woodbridge Township.
Natural resource damage suits are authorized under New Jersey’s Spill Act, giving the state a chance to seek money to restore tainted resources, such as groundwater or wetlands, and to compensate the public for its loss of those resources. New Jersey has used money from previous natural resource damage settlements to restore wetlands and build parks. In one case, it used $67 million from a settlement involving Passaic River pollution to develop parkland along the river in Newark.
“This is the largest single-day environmental enforcement action in New Jersey in at least a decade,” Attorney General Grewal said. “Today is just the beginning — we are going to hold polluters accountable, no matter how big, no matter how powerful, no matter how long they’ve been getting away with it.”
The cases “are an important way that we protect New Jersey’s environment,” said Catherine McCabe, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection. “They are a primary mechanism for restoring our natural environment when it has become polluted.”
The new suits represent a significant shift in policy for the state of New Jersey, which saw no new natural resource damages cases brought in ten years. Attorney General Grewal said additional suits will be brought involving other sites in the future, but has not provided any additional details regarding those suits.
These new actions by New Jersey represent the latest example of certain states leading the environmental enforcement charge and filling a void that many perceive has been left open by the federal government.