NJ Officials Cite Newark Company For ‘Hazardous’ Wastewater Tank

NEWARK, NJ — State officials have filed an environmental enforcement action against a site in Newark, accusing it of “posing a threat to residents and natural resources,” authorities recently announced.

Seven new actions have been filed across the state, according to a Friday joint statement from the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP).

They include Fast Oil Co. in Newark, prosecutors said. Read the full complaint here.

According to prosecutors:

“The state’s complaint alleges that Fast Oil Co. is exposing neighbors of 126 Passaic Street in Newark to environmental and public health dangers by failing to comply with DEP orders concerning a 300,000-gallon above-ground storage tank. The tank is mostly full of hazardous wastewater, which the company is now mixing with cooking oil and shipping to a biodiesel supplier without obtaining required DEP permits. According to today’s complaint, the tank contains silver, barium, and 2-butanone (methyl ethyl ketone), all of which are regulated hazardous substances. The substances are known to pose threats to human health including breathing problems, lung and throat irritation, muscular weakness, and central nervous system issues. Fast Oil previously failed to provide DEP with required discharge prevention and clean-up plans, and subsequently entered into an Administrative Consent Order (ACO) with DEP requiring that it remove all wastewater from the tank or submit the required plans within 120 days. Fast Oil then failed to comply with the ACO, and DEP subsequently discovered the company’s unpermitted wastewater/cooking oil operations.”

Prosecutors continued:

“The lawsuit seeks to compel defendants to empty the tank, repair the containment system surrounding the tank, immediately halt the illegal solid waste importing and processing operations, and pay civil penalties. Defendants in the case other than Fast Oil include Aryeh Weinstein (president of Fast Oil), W.A.S. Terminals (a prior site owner) and Eastern Biofuels, LLC (another prior site owner). The suit alleges violations of the Spill Act, ISRA and the New Jersey Solid Waste Management Act (SWMA).”

In addition to the action in Newark, five others were filed on Friday at sites in Camden, Irvington, Jersey City and Somerville. Each of those municipalities are considered “overburdened” under New Jersey’s Environmental Justice Law, because they have a significant low-income, minority and/or limited English proficiency population, authorities said.

Additional actions were filed in Pitman and Mays Landing.

Including the lawsuits announced Friday, the Attorney General’s Office and NJ DEP have filed a total of 45 environmental justice cases since 2018. To date, the lawsuits have yielded nearly $20 million in judgments. Many of the cases have resulted in court orders requiring responsible parties to protect public health and the environment by remediating the properties at issue.

Such orders are important fiscally as well, as they ensure that polluters – not New Jersey taxpayers – bear the cost of cleaning up harmful contamination, state officials said.

“Pollution affects all of us, but it doesn’t affect us equally,” Acting Attorney General Andrew Bruck said.

“Lower-income neighborhoods have been disproportionately exposed to environmental harms,” Bruck continued. “And far too often, the communities most affected by these harms have been communities of color. That legacy of environmental injustice is why, here in New Jersey, the Murphy Administration is prioritizing environmental cleanups in these overburdened neighborhoods.”

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