Environmental officials warn against eating toxic crabs from Passaic River, Newark Bay

Blue claw crabs live on the bottom of tidal waters all around New Jersey, including the Lower Passaic River and Newark Bay, areas that are highly polluted with toxic material from the era of producing Agent Orange.

But despite a ban, some people continue crabbing in those highly polluted waters where the crabs absorb dioxin and other chemicals in high levels, the state Department of Environmental Protection reported.

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Agent Orange New Jersey: Resident headed legal team in river pollution case victory

Judge Sebastian P. Lombardi, who presides in Essex County, ruled this past July that Occidental Chemical Corp. is responsible under state law for cleanup costs associated with pollution caused by the former Newark manufacturing plant, Diamond Alkali/Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Corp., according to a press release from the state's Department of Environmental Protection. Occidental Chemical Corp. acquired and merged with Diamond Alkali/Diamond Shamrock Chemicals Corp. in the 1980s.

"This ruling marks an important step in the long history of cleanup of contamination that has severely harmed the lower Passaic River and deprived the public of safe enjoyment of this resource for decades," stated DEP Commissioner Bob Martin in the press release.

According to reports, Diamond Shamrock/Diamond Alkali operated a pesticide and herbicide manufacturing plant on Lister Avenue in Newark from 1951 to 1969 that polluted the river with an extremely toxic form of dioxin that resulted from the production of Agent Orange — a defoliant that was used during the Vietnam War — along with DDT and other chemicals.

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Agent Orange New Jersey: N.J. court rules Tierra Solutions Inc. of Newark must help pay for cleanup of polluted lower Passaic River

Cost could range from $1 billion to $4 billion

The state Department of Environmental Protection has won another round in the legal fight to hold companies that polluted the lower Passaic River with pesticides and herbicides, including the Vietnam War-era defoliant Agent Orange, responsible for cleaning up the waterway.

“The pollution of the Passaic River is widespread and will be extremely costly to clean up,” Martin added. “These costs must be borne by those companies that assumed responsibility for their properties, not by the taxpayers of New Jersey."

In each of the rulings, Lombardi determined that the companies are liable under the Spill Compensation and Control Act for all past and future cleanup and removal costs associated with hazardous discharges from the plant, which manufactured pesticides and herbicides from 1951 to 1969.

River sediments are polluted with a dangerous form of dioxin known as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzene (TCDD), as well as DDT and other chemicals that have resulted in a decades-old ban on consuming crabs from the lower Passaic and Newark Bay.

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