TRENTON
-- A Superior Court judge has ruled that
ExxonMobil Corporation is liable for causing
a public nuisance by polluting the waterways,
wetlands and marshes on and near its former
refinery sites in Bayonne and Linden, Attorney
General Anne Milgram announced today.
In
ruling on part of a natural resource damage
lawsuit filed on behalf of the Department
of Environmental Protection, Superior Court
Judge Ross R. Anzaldi found that ExxonMobil
contaminated both sites through active disposal
and accidental spilling of hazardous substances
causing great damage. The specific amount
of damages owed by ExxonMobil will be determined
at trial.
Judge
Anzaldi, who presides in Union County, found
that soil and groundwater under the Bayonne
site was heavily contaminated with approximately
seven million gallons of oil -- ranging
in thickness from 7-to-17-feet -- before
cleanup operations began there in 1991.
Oil refinery operations at Bayonne lasted
from 1879 through 1972.
Anzaldi also found that a formerly-ExxonMobil-owned
refinery in Linden known as Bayway discharged
hazardous materials into Morses Creek for
years under ExxonMobil’s stewardship.
The discharges resulted in extensive hydrocarbon
contamination of both Morses Creek and the
Arthur Kill, into which the creek flows.
The court also found that former wetlands
areas on and near the Linden site were contaminated
with petroleum distillate residues. (Bayway
refinery is currently owned and operated
by Conoco Phillips.)
“This
court decision is important in our ongoing
effort to hold polluters accountable through
litigation,” said Attorney General
Milgram. “We remain committed to working
with DEP to have those who damage our environment
held legally responsible, and to obtain
compensation for natural resources lost
to contamination.”
”We
are pleased with this ruling, which sends
a clear message by affirming the public's
fundamental right to be compensated when
polluters harm natural resources,”
DEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson said. ”Natural
resource litigation is key to DEP's mission,
resulting in more than $55 million for ecological
enhancement projects and protection of more
than 6,000 acres of land.”
In
pursuing its case against ExxonMobil, the
state argued that DEP has authority under
the Public Trust Doctrine to protect the
public’s right to an uncontaminated
environment.
This
common law doctrine, state attorneys maintained,
has allowed the state to provide public
access to beaches and require developers
of former wetlands along the Hudson River
to provide a river walk with public access.
Judge Anzaldi accepted the state’s
argument while rejecting ExxonMobil’s
contention that the state relinquished its
trust interest in these natural resources
when it conveyed grants to ExxonMobil and
its predecessors in the late 19th and early
20th centuries.
Although
ExxonMobil is involved in remediating the
Bayonne and Linden sites under a 1991 Administrative
Consent Order, the DEP filed its current
lawsuit to require ExxonMobil to restore
some of the onsite natural resources it
damaged and destroyed by disposing of hazardous
substances in wetlands and waterways, and
to compensate the public for loss of natural
resources from the time pollution began
until those resources are restored.
Judge
Anzaldi previously ruled in this case that
ExxonMobil is liable under New Jersey’s
Spill Act for restoring natural resources
at the two sites, and the Appellate Division
ruled that State is entitled to loss-of-use
damages under that law.
The
state is represented in the ExxonMobil matter
by Special Counsel Allan Kanner and Elizabeth
Petersen of the New Orleans law firm of
Kanner & Whiteley, Bruce Nagel and Wayne
Greenstone of the Nagel Rice law firm in
Roseland, New Jersey and Deputy Attorney
General Richard Engel of the Division of
Law.
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