Can New Jersey’s $2 billion PFAS deal with DuPont be a model?

In the largest-ever environmental recovery by a single state, according to its attorney general, New Jersey reached a settlement last month valued at over $2 billion with DuPont and two of its affiliates to remediate long-standing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance (PFAS) contamination. Now the state’s top environmental official is emphasizing the magnitude of the settlement while underscoring the limits of litigation in addressing PFAS.“If we waited for the federal government . . . before acting to control PFAS contamination—or any contamination—we’d be waiting for generations,” New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) commissioner Shawn LaTourette tells C&EN. “The people of New Jersey aren’t that patient.”A monumental win for New Jersey residentsBuilding on years of “full throated” claims and a month-long federal trial, the settlement is foremost a “monumental win for residents,” LaTourette says. Resolving several lawsuits, the deal requires DuPont, Chemours, and Corteva to pay DEP $875 million in damages and cleanup costs to abate four manufacturing sites; it also requires them to restore natural resources and fund long-term remediation through a $1.2 billion funding source and a $475 million reserve. Payments will be made annually over 25 years and held in a DEP trust. The deal adds to the $1 billion New Jersey secured from 3M, Solvay, and ArkemaArkema in recent years for similar PFAS lawsuits.The litigation comes after decades of regulation has fallen short in addressing PFAS. With its long history of hazardous chemical production, New Jersey has developed some of the nation’s strictest environmental policies. “In New