EPA Proposed Settlement Agreement Provides Critical Work for Advancing the Lower Passaic River Superfund Cleanup
NEW YORK – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced 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 facilities to remove water from the river and 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.
“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 A. Hall. “This settlement demonstrates this Administration’s commitment to expediting work through cooperative engagement and well-tailored agreements.”
“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.”
“This is a huge step in cleaning up one of New Jersey’s most complex Superfund sites,” EPA Region 2 Administrator Michael Martucci. “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 with the 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 Proposed Consent Decree webpage.
Background
The Diamond Alkali Superfund Site includes the former Diamond Alkali facility at 80 and 120 Lister Avenue in Newark, New Jersey, the lower 8.3 miles of the Lower Passaic River, the broader 17-mile Lower Passaic River Study Area and the Newark Bay Study Area. EPA added the site to the Superfund National Priorities List in 1984. Historic industrial operations and other sources released hazardous substances into the river, including dioxins and furans, polychlorinated biphenyls, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides, mercury, copper and lead.
EPA selected a cleanup plan in 2016 for the lower 8.3 miles of the Lower Passaic River and an interim cleanup plan in 2021 for the upper 9 miles of the river. The cleanup plans call for dredging contaminated sediment, processing the dredged material at an upland facility, disposing of it off-site and capping areas of the river bottom. In May 2024, EPA approved the engineering details for the lower 8.3-mile cleanup plan, which was completed by Occidental Chemical Company-New York.
For more information is available on the Diamond Alkali Superfund site profile webpage.
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