Company Blamed for Pollution After Sandy Files Lawsuit

A company blamed for lead pollution at a site along the Raritan Bay says it is being unfairly targeted and others, including the town of Old Bridge and the state of New Jersey, are mainly responsible for the mess and should share the cost of the cleanup.
 
NL Industries made the claims in a lawsuit Wednesday filed in federal court. The lawsuit names the state, Old Bridge Township and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, along with numerous companies that brought used batteries, scrap metals and other waste to NL's Perth Amboy lead smelting plant.
 
Parts of the beach have been closed for several years due to contamination. Last week, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and Rep. Frank Pallone announced finalized plans for a $79 million cleanup of the site, known as the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site.
 
The suit alleges the state and Old Bridge knowingly allowed a seawall to be built with soil potentially contaminated by lead from the Perth Amboy plant that had been trucked by a third party to a site on Route 35 in Old Bridge.  
 
NL Industries called the town's conduct "especially egregious" and claimed Old Bridge knew "that lead-bearing slag had been used to construct the Seawall, and that lead-bearing material was now sitting unprotected in a marine environment."
 
Over time, the suit said, the town "sat by and did nothing for nearly thirty years, while the Seawall slowly broke down and lead-bearing particles were slowly spread by the near-shore current to soils and sediments."
 
Spokespeople for Old Bridge and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection didn't return messages seeking comment Thursday. Pallone said in an email that he "supports EPA's efforts to hold polluters accountable" and said he is sponsoring legislation to reinstate taxes paid by oil and gas companies between 1980 and 1986 that would fund Superfund cleanups.
 
The EPA said in a press release last week that NL Industries was identified as potentially liable for the cleanup costs and that the EPA would require those responsible for the contamination to bear the costs.
 
In the lawsuit, the company also claimed that its only connection to the site was the Perth Amboy plant.
 
"NL never owned or leased any property at the RBS Site, never operated there, never dumped any material there, and played no role in the decision of the developers and the Public Polluter Defendants to place lead-bearing material in the water," according to the suit.
 
Last fall, Superstorm Sandy caused extensive damage to the site and spread hundreds of tons of potentially contaminated debris around a waterfront park. The EPA said in the press release that it took soil samples from more than 100 areas on the site, removed debris and installed new mulch on a playground.