Lawsuits allege violations of environmental laws in some of NJ’s most vulnerable neighborhoods
By TAYLOR JUNG | NJ Spotlight
Clean up, polluters, or else.
This was the message from acting state Attorney General Matt Platkin and state Commissioner of Environmental Protection Shawn LaTourette this week as they announced environmental justice lawsuits.
The push is aimed especially in the state’s most vulnerable communities, with six of the lawsuits focused on sites in Newark, Linden, Ewing, Rahway, Elmwood Park Borough, and Middlesex Borough.
These areas are now considered “overburdened communities,” which the state defines as at least 35% low-income, at least 40% people of color, or at least 40% residents with limited English proficiency.
The seventh lawsuit is against a Hammonton blueberry farm with allegedly unsafe drinking-water wells where its migrant employees live and work.
The seven sites are:
- Avenue P, Newark
- B&S Oil Corporation, Rahway
- Tremley Point Road, Linden
- S. Burger Wire, Middlesex Borough
- Sigma Realty, Ewing
- Hans Family Cleaners, Elmwood Park Borough
- Blueberry Bill Farms, Hammonton
The flurry of lawsuits is all part of the state Department of Environmental Protection’s ongoing push to promote and enforce racial justice in the environment, as Black and Latino residents of New Jersey are more likely to live near a polluted site, experience the brunt of climate change and lack access to clean drinking water.
Climate policy must focus on Black and brown communities, advocates sayThe two state agencies said in a news release that 52 total environmental justice cases have been filed since 2018, racking up nearly $20 million in judgments so far.
“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 in a statement.
“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.”
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