Justice is moving closer to Jersey City, N.J. On March 2, a federal judge ruled a class action lawsuit, filed by residents against Honeywell and PPG Industries over dangerous hexavalent chromium exposure, can finally move forward.
This ruling is good news for Jersey City. This is the first major class action to seek compensation for residents rather than focus on cleaning up toxic waste sites.
The lawsuit, filed last May in the U.S. District Court in Newark, demands that defendants pay for periodic medical screenings for the early detection of cancer in exposed populations and pay damages to landowners whose properties have been devalued. The lawsuit also seeks punitive damages for defendants’ wrongful behavior. They knew the chromium waste could cause cancer and failed to properly clean it up.
The lawsuit is seeking class action status, which means that individuals who believed they were harmed can sue the companies as a group; each individual or family or business won’t have to file a separate lawsuit. This kind of approach is not unusual in environmental cases where whole populations are affected. It also serves the practical purpose of saving litigants time and money and not overwhelming the court system.
According to the lawsuit, defendants disposed of more than one million tons of chromium in Jersey City beginning in the early 1900s. The waste, referred to as chrome ore processing residue, or COPR, is a by-product of defendants’ Jersey City chromium chemical production operations of the last century, and much of it remains today.
The Jersey City law suit seeks certification of a proposed medical monitoring class for individuals who lived within 500 feet of a COPR waste site for at least six months. Class status is also being sought for a proposed property damage class which includes all properties within one-quarter mile of any chromium site. A map showing the location of the sites can be found here.
Over the years there’s been much conflicting information about the link between COPR and cancer. But a definitive study by the government in 2008 showed that some men living near the chemical dump sites had a 17% higher rate of cancer than men living further away.
This is a staggering difference in cancer rates. Because of this, residents have a right to expect and to demand that Honeywell and PPG Industries provide cancer screening to those who might have been exposed. Early cancer detection saves lives. Property owners also have a right to expect and demand compensation for the fact that a home or businesses located near a former toxic dump site is harder to sell and commands a lower price.
It is time Honeywell and PPG Industries finally acknowledge and respond to the human costs of their negligence. The residents of Jersey City are long overdue for justice.
