TRENTON, NJ — Acting Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette announced Aug. 24 the filing of seven new environmental enforcement actions across the state.
Six of the environmental justice lawsuits center on a broad array of chemical pollutants that have tainted separate, unrelated sites in Newark, Linden, Ewing, Rahway, Elmwood Park Borough and Middlesex Borough. Those six communities are considered overburdened under New Jersey’s Environmental Justice Law because they have significant low-income, minority and/or limited-English-proficiency populations.
The seventh lawsuit centers on a blueberry farm and blueberry processing operation in Hammonton that employs migrant farm workers who live on-site. The farm owner allegedly has not complied with NJDEP orders to stop using four substandard, unsafe drinking water wells on the property, and also is alleged to be using two unpermitted septic systems. Together with the lawsuit, the state also filed an application for an order requiring the farm owner to take immediate action — either shut down or stop using the wells for potable purposes, such as for drinking water or culinary purposes.
“Everyone, no matter where they are from or how they look, is entitled under our laws to live in an environment free from pollution,” Platkin said. “Pollution harms us all, but not equally. In New Jersey and across the nation, there is a shameful legacy of environmental injustice, but the Murphy administration is committed to changing that here in New Jersey. Today’s enforcement actions are the latest example of that continuing commitment.”
“In New Jersey, we are confronting the historic injustices that have burdened low-income and minority communities with a disproportionate amount of pollution,” LaTourette said. “Our commitment to furthering the promise of environmental justice sometimes demands that we take legal action to correct the legacy of pollution that underserved communities have endured. Lawsuits like those we are announcing today are an important message to polluters: Treat every New Jersey community as though it were your own by leaving your neighbors and their environment better than you found them.”
Filed in New Jersey Superior Court, today’s six environmental justice lawsuits address a variety of environmental threats, including the contamination of soil and groundwater, and the potential in some cases for harmful chemical vapors. The pollutants at issue and violations of law vary from complaint to complaint.
Locally, lawsuits were filed concerning:
• B & S Oil Corp. in Rahway. The state’s two-count complaint centers on contamination at the site of an out-of-operation service station on Lawrence Street in Rahway. Named as defendants in the lawsuit are former service station owners and operators B & S Oil Corp., Guraya Oil Corp. and individual defendant Sukhwinder Kaur.
According to the complaint, there were four documented discharges of gasoline and diesel fuel into the soil while the service station was still open for business. Exposure to gasoline and diesel fuel can cause dizziness, nausea, harm to internal organs and damage to cognitive functions. In 2015, the owners and operators entered into an agreement with NJDEP whereby they accepted responsibility for remediating the contamination. To date, the complaint alleges, they have failed to do so.
Through this lawsuit, NJDEP seeks an order compelling the defendants to remediate the site and asks the court to impose civil penalties as a result of their violation of the agreement struck with NJDEP in 2015.
• Tremley Point Road in Linden. This complaint seeks to collect $597,000 in civil penalties owed to NJDEP for illegal dumping at a former coal ash disposal site earmarked for redevelopment on Tremley Point Road in Linden. The defendants are D.T. Allen Contracting Co., Dredge Management Associates, and the companies’ owners/managing members, Greg Allen and Dan Allen.
According to the state’s lawsuit, the defendants violated the Solid Waste Management Act by dumping large amounts of contaminated fill at the 4050 Tremley Point Road site between 2015 and 2018.
The fill was supposed to be “clean” fill for use in capping and containing mounds of coal ash once disposed of on the property. Instead, the defendants allegedly imported massive amounts of contaminated fill in violation of the law, as well as in violation of NJDEP directives.
Among other things, the tainted fill contained elevated levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, along with lead and arsenic. In 2016, NJDEP issued two notices of violation against the defendants.
In 2018, NJDEP and the defendants signed an administrative consent order designed to resolve the matter. However, the complaint alleges, the defendants subsequently sold the property and walked away without meeting their remediation obligation under the consent order. In 2021, NJDEP issued a formal demand for stipulated penalties, seeking to collect the $597,000 owed by the defendants. The defendants never responded, and to date have never paid the agreed-upon penalties, according to the complaint.
Photos Courtesy of NJDEP