Group says New Jersey toxic waste dumping caused $1B in harm, calls settlement inadequate

Associated Press

TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — A Jersey Shore environmental group says damage from decades of toxic waste dumping at one of America’s most notorious pollution sites caused $1 billion worth of damages. Save Barnegat Bay is trying to overturn a settlement between the state of New Jersey and the corporate successor to the former Ciba-Geigy Corporation involving decades of contamination in and around Toms River. German chemical company BASF now owns the site. It is to pay the state $500,000 and carry out nine natural resource restoration programs at the site of the former chemical plant. The state defends its assessment of damages, but the environmental group says the state didn’t consider all the harm to the region.