Defendants to pay $100 million for contaminated landfill

Jan. 8 -- Defendants will pay about $100 million to help remediate a Superfund site that’s being called one of the nation’s most contaminated landfills.

More than 200 defendants are paying the cash to help cover the clean-up cost of the long-closed Combe Fill South landfill in Morris County, N.J., a Superfund site.

New Jersey reached a settlement with the parties for $43 million that includes $12.7 million for the state’s past remediation costs at the landfill in as well as $3.2 million for natural resource damages.

The defendants also will have to pay $27 million to cover future remediation costs, according to state Attorney General Anne Milgram and Mark N. Mauriello, acting commissioner for the state Department of Environmental Protection. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, will receive $56 million to cover past remediation costs, the state said.

The site was a municipal landfill from the 1940s to 1981, coming under Combe Fill Corp.’s ownership in 1978. That company went bankrupt in 1981 and the site was not closed properly, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The landfill accepted industrial waste, sewage sludge, septic tank waste, chemicals and waste oils for decades, the state said. Subsequent testing found ôsignificant levels of hazardous substances, specifically volatile organic compounds, in ground water and surface water at the site,ö the state said.

Contact Waste & Recycling News senior reporter Jim Johnson at (937) 964-1289 or jpjohnson@crain.com