Devils in the unknown details in proposed “forever chemicals” settlement between New Jersey and Solvay

Trenton, NJ — New Jersey’s lead environmental groups fighting to hold the state’s chemical industry accountable for their decades long, negligent, pervasive poisoning of people and environment urged caution in interpreting the complex settlement announced this morning by the Murphy Administration.

Led by the Delaware Riverkeeper Network with support from Clean Water Action and Environment New Jersey, they said “we all need to see the details and do a deep dive on them before we say too much, either positive or negative, on the proposed Solvay settlement. No one should be rushing to make pronouncements, it’ll take days if not weeks to be able to make authoritative statements”.

“After years of witnessing the pollution impacts from Solvay and advocating to make them, as the polluter, pay for the damage and stop their ongoing releases of toxics, we look forward to digging into the settlement documents to understand what is being done to make them accountable and clean up the pollution. The communities in the Delaware River region that have been indelibly harmed by Solvay and the highly toxic contamination they unleashed, have suffered terribly and need to benefit directly from whatever settlement is reached between DEP and Solvay,” stated Tracy Carluccio, Deputy Director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network and the lead New Jersey environmental advocate on “forever chemicals”.

“Solvay knew what they were doing from day one – poisoning people, drinking water, and the natural environment with “forever chemicals” that never go away. It is unconscionable. Forcing Solvay to pay up and clean up is long overdue. We look forward to the upcoming public process – a time for the community and groups like ours to weigh in on the terms of the settlement. Polluters like Solvay should have the book and more thrown at them for what they have done,“ added Amy Goldsmith, NJ State Director, Clean Water Action.

Doug O’Malley, Director of Environment New Jersey is on a family reunion in Ireland not available for comment today but joins in this statement and will be very involved in this settlement process when he returns next week as it moves forward.

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