‘Historic’ $393M settlement reached to clean up PFAS contamination in South Jersey

New Jersey officials have reached a $393 million settlement with chemical maker Solvay Specialty Polymers that they are calling “historic.” The settlement, announced Wednesday, will clean up various locations across 37 square miles contaminated by “forever chemicals” in Gloucester and Camden Counties.

It is the largest settlement in state history regarding contamination emanating from a single company location, said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin. Solvay, whose main plant is just off the Delaware River in West Deptford, Gloucester County, has had a contentious history in New Jersey for years.

“Under this agreement, Solvay will clean up per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, and compensate the public for natural resource damages in the drinking water in a 37-square-mile area around Solvay’s chemical facility,” Platkin said in the announcement from Trenton.

The settlement comes after New Jersey sued Solvay in 2020, accusing it of ignoring a mandate that it clean up contaminated drinking water and other pollution linked to toxic compounds once produced at its West Deptford plant.

A Solvay representative sent a statement to The Inquirer from Mike Finelli, the company’s chief North America officer, calling the settlement a “collaborative approach taken by NJDEP to reach this agreement, allowing all parties to continue focusing on cleaning the environment.”

Finelli said the company eliminated the use of fluorosurfactants — members of the PFAS family — at the facility in July 2021. He noted that the company has been “investigating and remediating PFAS in the environment near our West Deptford facility since 2013.”

PFAS are a group of man-made chemical compounds that were widely used for decades to make firefighting foam, stain-resistant clothing, and food packaging. They have been linked to low infant birth weights, effects on the immune system, cancer, and hormone disruption. PFAS can accumulate in the body and remain for long periods, so some refer to them as “forever chemicals.”

In 2018, New Jersey became the first state to adopt a maximum contaminant level of the man-made chemicals, though the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is in the process of approving a regulation that would reduce the allowable amount to near zero.

» READ MORE: What does it take to get ‘forever chemicals’ out of drinking water? Big new systems that you might have to help pay for.

The state’s lawsuit against Solvay sought to compel the company to stop releasing hazardous substances into surface and groundwaters, as well as into the air. It also sought to investigate the extent of PFAS pollution, protect drinking water sources, and restore natural resources. In addition, the state wanted Solvay to publicly disclose information regarding health and environmental impacts of the company’s operations.

“With the settlement that we are announcing today,” Platkin said, “they will do those things.”

Solvay makes specialty fluoropolymers in West Deptford that the company says are used in a range of applications, such as “renewable energy installations, lithium-ion batteries, components for compact engines in hybrid vehicles, medical device components, and smart devices.” The polymers can retain mechanical, thermal, and chemical properties under high temperature and pressure. The products can be wear resistant, flame retardant, or anti-corrosive.

Under the settlement, Solvay will clean up contamination at its West Deptford site and drinking water wells in surrounding communities.

The deal requires the company to post $214 million up front as a way to guarantee the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) will have money to complete the cleanup if Solvay fails to do so.

Solvay is on the hook for six years to remediate contamination to comply with any new standards adopted by the state or EPA.

It has to pay the DEP $100 million to address issues in drinking water systems in Bellmawr, Brooklawn, East Greenwich, Gloucester City, Gibbstown, Mount Royal, Paulsboro, Westville, and Woodbury, as well as issues with private wells in West Deptford, Logan Township, Deptford, Greenwich Township, and Swedesboro.

Solvay said it has already worked with West Deptford to install a drinking water treatment system on a municipal well, installed an engineered soil cap at the facility to prevent migration of contaminants, constructed an offsite pump-and-treat system for impacted groundwater, and enhanced existing onsite treatment systems for potentially impacted groundwater.

The company also said there are other “significant sources of PFAS contamination in the region,” which it did not manufacture.

Regardless, Solvay is required to pay $75 million for damages to the state’s natural resources under the settlement. And it must pay $3.7 million to compensate the state for costs related to addressing previous contamination by Solvay.

However, DEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said that this settlement is only one of many actions needed to address decades of PFAS pollution in the state from a range of companies, not just Solvay.

“We should all do what got my grandmother impressed upon me as a kid, which was to leave a place better than you found it,” LaTourette said. “That is the obligation of Solvay and every actor whose activities contaminate our environment. … It should not have to take a years-long enforcement action to bring a responsible party to the table. But if that’s what it takes, that’s what we will do.”

Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the nonprofit advocacy group Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said she remains cautious about the settlement until more details are available, saying about her group and other organizations that “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,” Carluccio said. “It’ll take days if not weeks to be able to make authoritative statements.”

State officials say Solvay has made industrial plastics, coatings, and other chemicals at the West Deptford plant it purchased from Ausimont in 2002.

It used Surflon, a proprietary process aid, which contained perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) — both part of the PFAS family.

The chemicals are highly mobile, accumulate in bodies, and remain indefinitely in the environment unless cleaned up.

The facility discharged other PFAS, officials said, as well as other contaminants including semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), metals, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

The state and Solvay have been at odds for years, but the issue over PFAS became increasingly contentious, and in March 2019, the DEP issued a directive to Solvay and other companies to address contamination caused by the compounds. The state has also sued DuPont and Chemours, alleging they sent the harmful chemicals flowing into the air, water, and soil, but officials made no mention of the status of those suits on Wednesday.

State officials say Solvay failed to fully comply and sued the company in November 2020, as well as Arkema, the prior owner and operator of the West Deptford facility.

Solvay is the first company that was part of the directive to reach a settlement.

This story has been corrected to note that Solvay purchased its West Deptford plant from Ausimont in 2022, not from Arkema in 1990.