Law360 Quotes David Isabel on DuPont’s $2.5B Deal with New Jersey Over PFAS Contamination

David Isabel, chair of the Environmental Law practice at Trenk Isabel Siddiqi & Shahdanian P.C., is quoted throughout an article in Law360 titled “‘Creative’ $2.5B DuPont Deal in NJ is PFAS Road Map for AGs.” The article, published August 15, discusses the settlement reached by the state of New Jersey and E.I. du Pont de Nemours, ending six years of litigation over “forever chemical” contamination at four of DuPont’s facilities. The deal is the largest environmental settlement ever achieved by a single state.

Isabel tells Law360 that a settlement was “extremely likely to happen” as “the stakes were too high.”

The deal was announced following more than a month of proceedings in a first-of-its-kind series of bench trials over whether DuPont entities were liable for contamination from perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) over the 125 years of its operations at its Chambers Works site.

DuPont and its related entities agreed to pay $875 million in natural resource and other damages to New Jersey, as well as fund abatement projects.

The companies also agreed to create a remediation funding source of up to $1.2 billion and an additional reserve fund of $475 million to ensure that if any of the companies goes bankrupt or otherwise fails to fulfill its responsibilities to the state, taxpayers won’t be left with the bill.

“The settlement is creative,” Isabel says. “It appears to deal with not only the known contamination, but also the potential for other contamination elsewhere, outside of those sites.”

The article states that the settlement is also likely to influence other states currently litigating PFAS contamination suits as well as spur more claims over PFAS as the public becomes more aware of their toxicity.

Isabel adds: “For private industry, this is a time to continue to pay attention to whether there’s PFAS contamination at properties you’re responsible for in any way, and that you investigated and remediated, because there is a lot of attention on forever chemicals.”

The full article can be read at Law360 (subscription required).