Since 2018, the state has filed 20 lawsuits for natural resource damages. Christie filed none

By JON HURDLE, NJ Spotlight, Contributing Writer

Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration has taken an aggressive approach to environmental litigation since taking office in 2018, filing 20 lawsuits claiming compensation from corporations for damage to natural resources. It filed another 52  complaints seeking the cleanup of sites that have polluted overburdened “environmental justice” communities. 

The administration has used legal means to compel corporate polluters to clean up New Jersey’s many contaminated sites, officials say, and to compensate the state and the public for the loss of environmental assets to contamination with industrial waste and chemicals. 

It’s a mixed record so far. All but one of the so-called natural resource damage (NRD) suits remain unresolved, including the most recent one against Dow Chemical and other companies. The state is demanding compensation for their alleged pollution with the chemical 1,4-dioxane, a suspected carcinogen, knowing that it would pollute drinking water. Meanwhile, more than 20 of the environmental justice complaints have been settled or subjected to court orders that impose fines or demand cleanup.  

The environmental justice complaints require defendants to fix environmental problems such as unsafe drinking water or leaks of toxic materials in marginalized communities that bear a disproportionate environmental burden. In 2020, Murphy signed a first-in-the-nation environmental justice law, which requires state officials to evaluate the environmental and public health impacts of permit applications and to deny permits if an environmental justice analysis determines that a project will have a disproportionately negative impact on overburdened communities. 

The administration’s activist litigation strategy reflects New Jersey’s long history of damage from industry — as shown by its highest-in-the-nation number of Superfund sites that have been designated by the federal government. It also comes out of an expectation that the courts are proving the most effective means of ensuring that polluters pay. 

‘Very aggressive’ 

“There are these huge old factories all over New Jersey and a lot of waterways, so there’s a lot of opportunity to have NRDs,” said Miano, referring to natural resource damage cases. Miano, who is not involved in any of the cases, added, “And the state has been going after them pretty aggressively.” 

“New Jersey is being very aggressive with these things,” said Steve Miano, an environmental lawyer with  Hangley Aronchick Segal Pudlin & Schiller in Philadelphia. “Among the states in the Northeast, they are leading the charge on actually filing cases.  

By contrast, the Christie administration didn’t file a single natural resource damage suit, according to the state attorney general’s office. 

The latest natural resource damage suit was filed on March 23 when the state sued the chemical giant Dow Chemical, saying the company made or used 1,4-dioxane, a toxic chemical classed by the Environmental Protection Agency as a likely carcinogen, knowing that it would pollute drinking water across the state.

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