The Justice Department, on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), today lodged a proposed settlement agreement with Environmental Resource Holdings LLC (ERH) to perform critical work to support the cleanup of the Diamond Alkali Superfund site, including the lower 17 miles of the Passaic River. The work is estimated to cost $125 million and focuses on the next steps needed to get the in-river work started.
Under the proposed consent decree, ERH would construct an upland processing facility and several upland support facilities that would enable dredging and capping work in the Lower Passaic River. The construction would include a facility to handle sediment dredged from the river before it is sent for off-site disposal. The upland support facilities would provide land and infrastructure needed to support future in-river construction work. ERH would sample the lower 8.3 miles of the river to establish a baseline and reimburse EPA for future oversight costs related to this work.
“Over many decades, industrial activity contaminated the Lower Passaic River,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the Justice Department’s Energy and Natural Resources Division (ENRD). “This settlement is a significant step toward cleaning up a site that has been a longstanding priority for EPA. We will continue to partner with EPA to promote public health by ensuring that responsible parties remediate Superfund sites.”
“The construction ordered in this consent decree is the next step in cleaning up the Lower Passaic River and finally remediating one of the oldest Superfund sites,” said Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Jeffrey Hall. “This settlement demonstrates this Administration’s commitment to expediting work through cooperative engagement and well-tailored agreements.”
“This is a huge step in cleaning up one of New Jersey’s most complex Superfund sites,” said Regional Administrator Michael Martucci of EPA Region 2. “The work laid out in this proposed settlement gets shovels in the ground and lays the foundation for dredging and that brings us one important step closer to a cleaner and restored Passaic River.”
ERH is a potentially responsible party for the site and a corporate successor to Occidental Chemical Corporation and to Diamond Alkali Company/Diamond Shamrock Corporation, which owned and operated the former Diamond Alkali facility in Newark.
The proposed consent decree was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey and is subject to a 30-day comment period. The complaint and the proposed consent decree are available on the Justice Department’s website at www.justice.gov/enrd/consent-decrees .
Attorneys with ENRD’s Environmental Enforcement Section are handling this matter.