NJ.com | New Jersey reached a $2 billion settlement with DuPont and several of its entities to resolve a lawsuit over “forever chemical” contamination at four industrial sites, which state officials called the largest environmental settlement ever achieved by a single state.
DuPont de Nemours and Co. will spend $875 million to clean up contamination of PFAS (short for polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances), which the company used for decades in its Teflon production. The materials, often known as part of a set of materials known as “forever chemicals,” have been linked to various cancers and birth defects.
About $125 million from the $875 million is being designated for damages, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said. To ensure that no public funds will be used for the cleanup, DuPont will create a $1.2 billion funding source, as well as a $475 million reserve fund, in the event that the company goes bankrupt or fails to make its payments.
DuPont and its entities agreed to make payments for the next 25 years, the Attorney General’s Office said.
The settlement ends litigation filed in 2019, as part of a broader effort to amend decades of contamination. It comes after about a month-long trial in U.S. District Court, the Attorney General’s Office said.
The settlement is New Jersey’s third major victory in PFAS-related litigation in roughly the past two years.
As part of the lawsuit, New Jersey also targeted Chemours, which was spun off from DuPont in 2015, a move critics saw as an effort to shed DuPont of its hefty environmental pollution baggage.
In a statement, DuPont, headquartered in Delaware, said it will purchase $150 million in insurance proceeds from Chemours for PFAS claims. After the company recovers $150 million and related fees, Chemours will be entitled to its 50% share of further insurance recoveries, DuPont said.
The agreement will also resolve three other lawsuits regarding specific sites in New Jersey, the statewide claims for the firefighting material known as aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF) and DuPont and its related entities’ responsibilities under a PFAS statewide directive, the Attorney General’s Office said.
The most notable facility in the litigation is a plant in Pompton Plains, where DuPont spent decades producing munitions materials. Byproducts gradually trickled into the environment, including lakes, streams, and rivers, eventually coming into contact with humans. At the time New Jersey filed its lawsuit, more than 300 homes in the town were equipped with filters to prevent harmful chemicals from seeping into their basements.
