Assembly members Linda Greenstein and John McKeon

GREENSTEIN/McKEON POLLUTER-ACCOUNTABILITY BILLS
CLEARED BY ASSEMBLY PANEL
Multi-Bill Package Spurred by W.R. Grace/Zonolite Asbestos Contamination;
Would Ensure Proper Review of Sites, Create Civil Penalties for False Reports(TRENTON) -- The Assembly Environment and Solid Waste Committee today released a package of legislation Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein and Assemblyman John McKeon sponsored to reform state environmental reporting laws to ensure that polluters are not able to misreport possible contamination to state environmental authorities.

The bills were introduced in response to an Assembly hearing held last year into asbestos contamination at the former W.R. Grace/Zonolite facility in Hamilton Township, Mercer County. The hearing exposed that the company filed a false environmental site report with the state Department of Environmental Protection in 1994 to hide the fact that the site was contaminated with latent asbestos.

The bills, however, could have applicability to other recent highly publicized contamination cases in New Jersey, such as the burial of toxic paint sludge in the Wanaque Reservoir watershed and the use of PCB-laden concrete as fill at several Central Jersey construction sites.

"The W.R. Grace situation and these other incidents in the state unmasked weaknesses in our environmental reporting system that had allowed unscrupulous companies to knowingly hide contamination from state authorities without fear of punishment," said Greenstein (D-Middlesex/Mercer), who spearheaded the Assembly inquiry. "We must change the culture of indifference that has allowed some corporate polluters to evade responsibility for their actions and never be held legally liable."

"Falsifying an environmental report is an egregious breach of corporate responsibility," said McKeon (D-Essex). "A polluter's desire to not pay for site remediation must never be given greater weight than the need of residents and communities to be healthy. We must raise the bar for environmental reporting to safeguard our communities from potentially-deadly hazards going unreported and untreated."

In 1994, W. R. Grace & Co. shut down operations at the Hamilton Zonolite insulation manufacturing facility it had operated for 45 years and owned since 1963. Upon vacating the facility, the company submitted a report --prepared by a third-party environmental management firm -- to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), contending that no significant levels of asbestos were at the site, and suggesting that no remediation actions were necessary.

New testing on the site in 2005 confirmed that it was, in fact, contaminated with tremolite asbestos. The DEP subsequently rescinded the company's "no further action" recommendation.

The Greenstein/McKeon measures would do the following:

Criminalize the act of knowingly or recklessly providing false or misleading information or statements to environmental authorities. Violations would be penalized by fines of at least $25,000 for a first offense, and a maximum of $100,000 for subsequent offenses (A-1839);

Authorize increased civil penalties against individuals who knowingly or recklessly provide false or misleading information relating to potentially contaminated site to authorities. Under the legislation, judges also would be able to penalize violators a fine equal to the amount of economic benefit derived from that false information (A-1841);

Require any person performing a site remediation to submit an environmental report concerning the mitigation to municipal authorities (A-1894);

Increase to 60 days -- from the current 45 days -- the amount of time available to DEP officials to review statements suggesting that no hazardous materials exist at a site -- so-called "negative declarations" (A-1895).

Two other Greenstein/McKeon proposals -- to eliminate the statute of limitations for environmental crimes and require that local officials be alerted to mitigation efforts in their municipalities, respectively -- were previously cleared by the committee.

Those bills currently await a hearing in the Assembly Judiciary Committee, which Greenstein chairs.

"Our state has made tremendous strides to clean up environmentally sensitive areas," said McKeon. "We cannot have that progress negated by someone putting profit before the public's health."

"W.R. Grace was allowed to take advantage of weak oversight that must be enhanced immediately," said Greenstein. "No other community in New Jersey should have to endure the type of corporate irresponsibility and dereliction of stewardship that the people of Hamilton have been forced to deal with."

The measures all were released by unanimous 7 - 0 votes. They now head to the Assembly Judiciary Committee for further review.

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