TRENTON
-- Attorney General Anne Milgram announced
today that the state has filed a lawsuit
in Superior Court seeking to recover the
cost of cleaning up and restoring a contaminated
property that is the site of a planned school
for the arts in East Orange.
Filed
on behalf of the New Jersey Schools Development
Authority, the lawsuit focuses on contamination
of an eight-acre property on North Arlington
Avenue that once housed a dry cleaning business,
Carriage Trade Cleaners. The property is
currently the site of construction work
on the East Orange school district’s
Cicely Tyson School of Performing Arts and
Fine Arts. An SDA-funded project, the school
is scheduled for completion in 2009.
According
to the state’s lawsuit, the property
was contaminated over a period of years
with tetrachloroethene (PCE), a chemical
compound regularly used in dry cleaning,
and required extensive clean-up and soil
removal work that was paid for by the state.
Named as defendants in the lawsuit are former
property owners Joseph Marcantuone of Verona
and Robert Gieson of Livingston and operator
Sang Hak Shin of Paramus.
“We are seeking reimbursement from
these defendants for what the state has
had to spend to clean-up their property,”
Attorney General Milgram said. “Public
dollars should not be used to clean up and
restore properties contaminated by private
industry.”
Scott
Weiner, chief executive officer of the SDA,
said the lawsuit is part of an important
initiative, launched in late 2006, to recover
costs from responsible parties for environmental
remediation, as well as for design errors
and project delays.
“In
collaboration with the Attorney General’s
Office, the SDA will continue an aggressive
effort in 2008 to recover costs that rightfully
should be paid by those who bear responsibility,
not New Jersey taxpayers,” said Weiner.
Also
named as defendants in the state’s
lawsuit are JRM LLC d/b/a Carriage Trade
Cleaners, of Paramus, and a variety of “ABC”
corporations and individual “John
Does.” The ABC Corporations and John
Doe defendants are owners, operators or
parties otherwise in control of the Carriage
Trade Property at the time of the discharge
of hazardous waste who could not be identified
by name as of the filing of the lawsuit
on February 1, 2008.
Attorney
General Milgram noted that the lawsuit is
being brought under the New Jersey Spill
Compensation and Control Act. Under the
Act, a governmental entity such as the state
is exempt from liability for clean-up and
removal costs related to pre-existing contamination
at a property it acquires by eminent domain
or condemnation for redevelopment purposes.
The state’s lawsuit notes that $629,000
in SDA funding was used by East Orange to
acquire the property via condemnation, and
that a portion of that funding -- $182,000
– was ordered held in escrow by the
court to cover the cost of any environmental
remediation.
The lawsuit seeks to have the defendants
held legally responsible for PCE contamination
at the North Arlington Avenue property.
It also asks that the $182,000 being held
in escrow be released to the state.
The
Cicely Tyson School of Performing Arts and
Fine Arts is a demonstration project proposed
by the East Orange School District and the
City of East Orange. The project features
a new, 280,095-square-foot pre-K through
grade 12 performing arts/music magnet school
on a 12-acre campus within the city’s
Main Street redevelopment area. Students
from the 100-year-old Washington School
and the existing Cicely Tyson School will
attend the school. A September 2009 opening
is scheduled.
Demonstration
projects are school facilities projects
that incorporate community design features
and are coordinated with wider community
economic redevelopment. Six were authorized
under the Educational Facilities Construction
and Financing Act of 2000. The East Orange
demonstration project is managed by the
City of East Orange as the redevelopment
entity and Joseph Jingoli & Son, Inc.
as the redeveloper. Jingoli is also the
construction manager/general contractor.
The SDA provides 100 percent funding and
oversight.
The
SDA (then known as the SCC) awarded East
Orange a grant for design and construction
of the new school in December 2004. The
Carriage Trade Cleaners property was subsequently
acquired via condemnation, and a follow-up
investigation revealed PCE contamination.
The contaminated soil was excavated and
properly disposed of in 2006. A subsequent
consulting study found the remediation effort
to have been sufficiently completed. The
Department of Environmental Protection approved
the consultant’s Remedial Action Report
on the site in March 2007.
DAG Michael McMahon, of
the Division of Law's Cost Recovery and
Natural Resource Damages section, handled
the lawsuit on behalf of the state.
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