TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — Years of toxic waste dumping in a Jersey Shore community where childhood cancer rates rose caused at least $1 billion in damage to natural resources, according to an environmental group trying to overturn a settlement between New Jersey and the corporate successor to the firm that did the polluting.
Save Barnegat Bay and the township of Toms River are suing to overturn a deal between the state and German chemical company BASF under which the firm will pay $500,000 and carry out nine environmental remediation projects at the site of the former Ciba-Geigy Chemical Corporation plant.
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A gate blocks entrance to the former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant Dec. 17, 2024, in Toms River, N.J., one of America's worst toxic waste sites. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
A gate blocks entrance to the former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant Dec. 17, 2024, in Toms River, N.J., one of America's worst toxic waste sites. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
Water sits in a lined pit at the former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant on Dec. 17, 2024, in Toms River, N.J., one of America's most notorious toxic waste sites. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
Water sits in a lined pit at the former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant on Dec. 17, 2024, in Toms River, N.J., one of America's most notorious toxic waste sites. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
FILE - A sculpture of a grieving mother at a memorial garden in Toms River, N.J., for children who died from any cause is shown on Feb. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)
Trees are reflected in the slow-moving Toms River on Feb. 21, 2023, where the former Ciba-Geigy Chemical Corp. dumped toxic waste for decades. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
That site became one of America's worst toxic waste dumps and led to widespread concern over the prevalence of childhood cancer cases in and around Toms River.
Save Barnegat Bay says the settlement is woefully inadequate and does not take into account the scope and full nature of the pollution.
The state Department of Environmental Protection defended the deal, saying it is not supposed to be primarily about monetary compensation; restoring damaged areas is a priority, it says.
“Ciba-Geigy’s discharges devastated the natural resources of the Toms River and Barnegat Bay,” said Michele Donato, an attorney for the environmental group. “The DEP failed to evaluate decades of evidence, including reports of dead fish, discolored waters, and toxic effluent, that exist in its own archived files.”
Those materials include documents dating back to 1958 detailing fish kills and severe oxygen depletion caused by the company's dumping of chemicals into the Toms River and directly onto the ground. It also includes a study by a consultant for Ciba-Geigy showing that a plume of contaminated underground water is three-dimensional and thus could not be adequately assessed by the manner used by New Jersey to calculate damage to natural resources, the group said.
An accurate calculation of damages to the site and the surrounding area would exceed $1 billion, Save Barnegat Bay said in court papers.
"This deal does not come close to compensating our community for what we’ve suffered,” former Toms River Mayor Maurice Hill said in a January public hearing on the settlement.
The state declined to comment. In court papers, it defended its handling of the damage assessment.
BASF, which is the corporate successor to Ciba-Geigy, declined comment on the litigation but said it is committed to carrying out the settlement it reached with New Jersey in 2022.
That calls for it to maintain nine projects for 20 years, including restoring wetlands and grassy areas; creating walking trails, boardwalks and an elevated viewing platform; and building an environmental education center.
Starting in the 1950s, Ciba-Geigy — which had been the town’s largest employer — flushed chemicals into the Toms River and the Atlantic Ocean, and buried 47,000 drums of toxic waste in the ground. This created a plume of polluted water that has spread beyond the site into residential neighborhoods and is still being cleaned up.
The state health department found that 87 children in Toms River, which was then known as Dover Township, had been diagnosed with cancer from 1979 through 1995. A study determined the rates of childhood cancers and leukemia in girls in Toms River “were significantly elevated when compared to state rates.” No similar rates were found for boys.
The study did not explicitly blame the increase on Ciba-Geigy’s dumping, but the company and two others paid $13.2 million to 69 families whose children were diagnosed with cancer. Ciba-Geigy settled criminal charges by paying millions of dollars in fines and penalties on top of the $300 million it and its successors have paid so far to clean up the site.
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A gate blocks entrance to the former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant Dec. 17, 2024, in Toms River, N.J., one of America's worst toxic waste sites. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
A gate blocks entrance to the former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant Dec. 17, 2024, in Toms River, N.J., one of America's worst toxic waste sites. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
Water sits in a lined pit at the former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant on Dec. 17, 2024, in Toms River, N.J., one of America's most notorious toxic waste sites. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
Water sits in a lined pit at the former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant on Dec. 17, 2024, in Toms River, N.J., one of America's most notorious toxic waste sites. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
FILE - A sculpture of a grieving mother at a memorial garden in Toms River, N.J., for children who died from any cause is shown on Feb. 21, 2023. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry, File)
Trees are reflected in the slow-moving Toms River on Feb. 21, 2023, where the former Ciba-Geigy Chemical Corp. dumped toxic waste for decades. (AP Photo/Wayne Parry)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — As civil rights advocates protest, Republican lawmakers in several Southern states are seizing on the opportunity afforded by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to redraw congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections.
The latest state to jump on the redistricting bandwagon is Tennessee, where a special legislative session is to begin Tuesday, a day after a similar session kicked off in Alabama. In Louisiana, lawmakers also are making plans for new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state's current map.
The high court’s ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second Black-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act. The ruling significantly altered a decades-old understanding of the law and gave Republicans in various states grounds to try to eliminate majority-Black districts that have elected Democrats.
It could lessen congressional representation for Black Americans and other minorities, reversing decades of gains in minority voting rights.
President Donald Trump has been encouraging more states to join in redistricting as Republicans seek to hold on to their narrow House majority in this year’s elections.
Alabama lawmakers were to hear testimony Tuesday on legislation that would allow a special congressional primary, if the Supreme Court clears the way for the state to change its U.S. House districts.
In light of the court's ruling on Louisiana's districts, Alabama officials have asked the high court to set aside a judicial order to use a U.S. House map that includes two districts with a substantial number of Black voters and instead let the state revert to a map previously passed by Republican lawmakers. That map could help the GOP win at least one of those two seats currently held by Democrats.
Alabama's primaries are scheduled for May 19. If the Supreme Court grants the state's request after or too close to the primary, the legislation under consideration would ignore the results of that primary and direct the governor to schedule a new primary under the revised districts.
“This is the voice of the people,” Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter said while promoting the Republican plan. “We had three judges determine how five million people were supposed to vote, and I don’t think that’s the way.”
Several hundred people protested Monday shortly before Alabama's special session began, some carrying signs declaring “No new map” and “We fight back! Black Voters Matter.” Opponents of the redistricting session gathered across the street from the historic Alabama Capitol, where the Confederacy was formed in 1861 and where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed a crowd of thousands after the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march.
“Much blood, sweat and tears was shed in an effort for us to gain the right to vote,” said Sheyann Webb-Christburg, who as a child participated in the 1965 Bloody Sunday voting rights march in Selma. “In 2026, there are still people who are still not exercising that right to vote, and we are still fighting today, even in an effort to keep our right to vote.”
Republican Gov. Bill Lee called Tennessee lawmakers into a special session to consider a plan that could break up the state’s lone Democratic-held U.S. House district, centered on the majority-Black city of Memphis. The move comes after pressure from Trump.
The candidate qualifying period in Tennessee ended in March, and the primary election is scheduled for Aug. 6.
Some clergy members have denounced the plan to split Memphis’ congressional district, and Martin Luther King III sent a letter to Tennessee legislative leaders expressing “grave concern” about it.
“This decision undermines the work that my father, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., carried out to help secure passage of the Voting Rights Act,” he wrote, noting that his father was assassinated in Memphis. He added: “Do not dismantle the only Congressional district that provides Black voters in Memphis a fair opportunity to have a voice in our democracy. Do not take this nation back to the days of Jim Crow.”
After last week’s Supreme Court decision, Louisiana moved to delay its May 16 congressional primary to allow time for lawmakers to approve new U.S. House districts.
Louisiana state Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican who chairs a Senate committee tasked with redistricting, told The Associated Press that his committee plans to hold a public hearing Friday. Kleinpeter said lawmakers are still weighing their options, including bills that would eliminate one or both of the state’s two majority-Black Congressional districts.
Democrats and civil rights groups have filed several lawsuits challenging the suspension of Louisiana's congressional primary, including another filed Monday in federal court. They are encouraging people in Louisiana — where early voting already is underway — to go ahead and cast votes in the congressional primaries in case courts later allow them to be counted.
Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn only once a decade, after a census, to account for population changes. But Trump urged Texas Republicans last year to redraw U.S. House districts to give the party an advantage. Democrats in California responded by doing the same, and then other states joined in.
Florida became the eighth state to enact new House districts when Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Monday he had signed a redrawn map passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature. It could help Republicans win as many as four additional House seats. The new map was immediately challenged in court as a partisan gerrymander that violates a Florida constitutional provision against drawing districts that favor one political party over another.
All told, Republicans think they could gain as many as 13 seats from new congressional districts in five states, while Democrats think they could pick up as many as 10 seats from new districts adopted in three states. The newly proposed redistricting in Southern states could add to the Republicans’ tally.
Chandler reported from Montgomery, Alabama, and Lieb from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers Jack Brook in New Orleans and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
FILE - Pansies bloom in front of the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., April 11, 2008. (AP Photo/Dave Martin, File)
FILE - The Tennessee Capitol is seen, Jan. 22, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)
