Dive Brief:
- The Chemours Co., DuPont de Nemours and Corteva reached a proposed agreement with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to pay $875 million over a 25-year period to resolve all legacy PFAS-related claims in the state.
- The deal includes an approximately $125 million allocation for costs, fees, penalties and punitive damages, according to a press release from the state’s Attorney General Matthew Platkin.
- The three chemical companies also agreed to establish a remediation fund of up to $1.2 billion and a backup reserve fund of $475 million to ensure that all cleanup work for PFAS is fully funded without relying on public funds.
Dive Insight:
The proposed agreement is valued at over $2.5 billion, which the state designates as a “groundbreaking environmental settlement” to remedy PFAS contamination and other toxic substances from the four affected industrial sites in New Jersey:
- Pompton Lakes Works, in Pompton Lakes and Wanaque
- The Parlin site in the borough of Sayreville
- The Repauno Works site, in Greenwich Township
- Chambers Works, in Pennsville and Carney’s Point Township
Chemours will make 50%, or approximately $250 million, of the New Jersey settlement payments based on a 2021 memorandum of understanding agreement between the three chemical companies.
DuPont will be responsible for 35.5%, or approximately $177 million, and Corteva will take care of the remaining 14.5%, or approximately $72 million, of the settlement payments, according to the company’s press release.
Additionally, DuPont and Corteva will pay $150 million to purchase certain insurance proceeds related to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances claims from Chemours pending a judge’s approval. After DuPont and Corteva recover the $150 million plus a fee, Chemours will claim 50% of its share of the insurance recoveries.
DuPont has made several corporate restructuring moves in recent years. In 2017, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., DuPont’s former formal company title and referred to as “Old DuPont” in court documents, merged with Dow Chemical Co. for $130 billion. The plan was to break up the conglomerate into three different businesses.
Two years later, the conglomerate was dissolved and broke into three separate entities: DuPont de Nemours, a specialty products business referred to as “New DuPont” in court documents, Corteva, an agriculture business, and Dow, a materials science business. DuPont is once again planning to split the company into two separate, independent entities.
In March 2019, New Jersey’s DEP issued a mandate to E.I. DuPont de Nemours, then conglomerate DowDuPont and Chemours — along with 3M and Solvay Specialty Polymers USA — to fund the state’s PFAS assessment and cleanup efforts.
The state then sued the chemical manufacturers listed in the directive. Solvay reached a $392.7 million settlement with NJDEP in 2023. Its co-defendant in the lawsuit, Arkema, which previously owned the same site, agreed to settle its part of the alleged contamination, including paying $33.95 million for remediation and damages as well as committing $75 million for a reserve fund.
In May, 3M reached a proposed agreement with the state’s environmental protection agency to pay up to $450 million to resolve all of its legacy PFAS-related claims in New Jersey.
The state is expected to recover more than $3 billion from the lawsuits, which will compensate New Jersey and mitigate the damage caused by PFAS and other pollutants, according to Platkin’s press release.
“This landmark settlement will advance New Jersey’s nation-leading PFAS abatement efforts, improve drinking water quality, and restore injured natural resources,” Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said in a statement. “This resolution embodies the steadfast commitment of the Department of Environmental Protection and our Attorney General to hold all PFAS polluters to account, and to protect public health, safety, and the environment from these harmful chemicals.”
DuPont’s New Jersey settlement follows another agreement the company made recently. In June, the chemical manufacturer reached a $27 million agreement to settle a 2016 class-action lawsuit with the towns of Hoosick and Hoosick Falls, New York, to resolve alleged contamination with perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, according to the plantiff attorney’s press release.
DuPont was the last to settle in the New York case. 3M, Saint-Gobain and Honeywell settled in 2021 for approximately $65.3 million.
