TRENTON – Attorney General Zulima V. Farber announced today that the State has filed a lawsuit seeking to recover cleanup costs related to two separate incidents involving trains owned by the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway Corp. (NYS&W). One incident involved a derailment in Paterson that caused construction and demolition debris to spill. The other, earlier incident involved a locomotive engine leaking diesel fuel that ultimately discharged into the Hackensack River near a NYS&W facility in Ridgefield Park.

Filed in the Law Division of New Jersey Superior Court in Passaic County, the lawsuit seeks not only to recover clean-up costs incurred by the State, but also asks that maximum statutory penalties be imposed against NYS&W for violating the New Jersey Solid Waste Management Act.

“In each case, these two incidents created a public nuisance that required a significant investment by the State to investigate and clean up,” said Attorney General Farber. “One of these incidents resulted in diesel fuel flowing into the Hackensack River. The other caused tons of broken-up sheet rock and other construction debris and dust particulate to spill into the street and on private property. We are committed to working with the Department of Environmental Protection to recover the cost of cleaning up such environmental hazards from responsible parties.”

According to the State’s complaint, eight gondola cars from an NYS&W train derailed on May 30, 2006 in Paterson and spilled more than 900 tons of construction and demolition debris while slamming into a car wash and part of an auto repair shop. The debris was removed under DEP and local supervision, and taken to the 4th Street railway transfer station in Paterson. As part of the initial clean-up, local firefighters were forced to hose down the spilled debris with water, creating the potential for some debris and particulate to have entered storm drains. The total state cost of investigating, inspecting, monitoring and cleaning up the spill totaled approximately $16,000. The maximum statutory penalty for violating the New Jersey Solid Waste Management Act, as the state alleges NYS&W did in Paterson, is a fine of up to $50,000 per day.

On November 26, 2005, at an NYS&W rail yard in Ridgefield Park, a filter malfunction in a locomotive engine caused approximately 2,100 gallons of diesel fuel to leak onto the railroad property and, from there, into a storm water collection system that discharged into the Hackensack River.

According to the State complaint filed Thursday, the DEP’s Bureau of Emergency Response spent approximately $23,500 in public funds to investigate and remediate the locomotive fuel spill. The complaint alleges that NYS&W has twice failed to respond to DEP letters requesting that the company reimburse the state as authorized by the Spill Compensation and Control Act and other state laws.

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