TRENTON
– Attorney General Stuart Rabner announced
today the filing of a lawsuit on behalf
of the state Schools Construction Corporation
(SCC) seeking to recover costs incurred
by the agency in cleaning up a contaminated
Getty service station property, as well
as an adjoining parcel, acquired for a school
construction project in Elizabeth.
Filed with the New Jersey Superior Court
in Union County, the two-count SCC lawsuit
focuses on petroleum-product-related contamination
found in the soil and groundwater at the
site for what became Public School #30 in
Elizabeth. To date, the SCC has incurred
approximately $885,000 in costs related
to the site clean-up.
“Substantial
public dollars have been invested in cleaning
up these properties,” said Attorney
General Rabner. “We are committed
to ensuring, through litigation, that those
public dollars are recovered from the responsible
parties – those who allowed these
properties to become contaminated and failed
to meet their legal responsibility to remove
the contamination.”
Named as defendants in the SCC lawsuit are
Getty Petroleum Marketing, Inc., of East
Meadow, N.Y., Getty Properties Corp., of
Jericho, N.Y. and Power Test Realty, also
of Jericho. Power Test Realty acquired the
service station property from another major
petroleum company in 1985, and subsequently
leased it to Getty.
The SCC is launching a concerted effort
to sue for the recovery costs of environmental
cleanup from responsible parties and insurers.
“This
is the start of an important initiative
for the SCC,” said Scott Weiner, CEO
of the Schools Construction Corporation.
“We expect to file more such lawsuits
in upcoming months, standing as clear evidence
of the SCC's resolve to recover money on
behalf of New Jersey taxpayers.”
According to the state’s lawsuit,
a Getty service station property on Newark
Avenue that SCC acquired for $650,000 became
polluted over a span of years by the discharge
of hazardous materials, and by the underground
storage of petroleum products in massive
tanks. An adjoining former restaurant property
on Pennsylvania Avenue, also acquired by
the SCC for Elizabeth School #30 at a cost
of $1.2 million, showed evidence of contamination
with petroleum-related materials as well.
The SCC acquired the Getty service station
property and the adjoining former restaurant
property via condemnation in October 2003.
In 2004, separate testing efforts by Getty
and the SCC revealed the presence of a variety
of hazardous substances in the soil and
groundwater of the Getty property including
benzene, xylene, ethyl benzene and methyl
tertiary butyl ether.
In April 2004, additional investigation
at the School #30 site uncovered two 3,000-gallon
underground storage tanks for unleaded gasoline,
and a 4,000-gallon underground storage tank
for leaded gasoline. Subsequent soil testing
revealed the presence of numerous hazardous
pollutants where the tanks had been found,
including total petroleum hydrocarbons.
The SCC subsequently had 6,300 cubic yards
of petroleum- contaminated soil removed
from the Getty property, and also removed
a total of eight underground fuel storage
tanks – including a 550-gallon oil
storage tank that had been found underground
on the adjoining former restaurant property.
Costs incurred by the SCC to date at the
School #30 site include more than $631,000
for removal of petroleum-contaminated soil
and $179,000 for environmental engineering
services. In addition, the SCC has incurred
about $75,000 worth of administrative costs
related to oversight and coordination of
the site remediation work. The SCC also
continues to monitor groundwater conditions
at the site, and it is projected that monitoring-related
costs will eventually total approximately
$79,000.
In its lawsuit, the state contends that
SCC’s claim for recovery of clean-up
and contaminant removal costs relative to
the School #30 site is authorized by the
New Jersey Spill Act. Count one of the suit
asks the court to order that Getty and Power
Test Realty reimburse the SCC for all costs
related to the property clean-up, as well
as all fees and costs related to the litigation.
Count two of the lawsuit contends that Power
Test Realty and the Getty companies have
benefited from “unjust enrichment”
because the state paid fair-market value
for the Getty service station property (as
if it were pollutant free) and to date the
SCC – not the defendants -- has borne
all costs associated with cleaning up the
property.
#
# # |