Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, as well as Representatives Frank Pallone, Jr. and Bill Pascrell, Jr. , announced Monday they would reintroduce legislation that would restore a tax on polluters to pay for the cleanup of Superfund sites like the E.C. Electroplating plant.
GARFIELD -- Cancer-causing chromium has been leaching into the soil near the site of the former E.C. Electroplating plant on Clark Street since 1983. The plant stopped operating in 2009. The federal Environmental Protection Agency started removing tanks and soil in 2011, but doesn't have the money to finish the job.
Some New Jersey legislators hope to change that. Senators Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, as well as Representatives Frank Pallone, Jr. and Bill Pascrell, Jr. , announced Monday they would reintroduce legislation that would restore a tax on polluters to pay for the cleanup of Superfund sites like the E.C. Electroplating plant.
"It's simply unacceptable that communities like Garfield have to languish in uncertainty while Congress fails to address the shortfalls in the Superfund cleanup program," Booker said.
The Superfund Polluter Pays Restoration Act of 2014 would reinstate an excise tax on polluting industries that goes toward the Superfund.
Menendez and Booker pushed for the "polluter pays" legislation in 2014, but it was never passed. The Superfund program lacks the funds to pay for the more than 1,100 sites on the list, the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that year. New Jersey has 113 Superfund sites, more than any other state.
Myles Ma may be reached at mma@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MylesMaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.