New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette announced a groundbreaking environmental settlement, valued at over $2 billion, to remedy long-standing contamination stemming from PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), also known as “forever chemicals,” as well as other pollutants originating from four industrial sites. It is the largest environmental settlement ever achieved by a state.
PFAS are synthetic chemicals that have been manufactured in the United States since the 1940s. They are used to make a variety of household, consumer, and industrial products. Known as “forever chemicals,” they do not degrade or break down over time and continue to accumulate in the environment and our bodies.
The proposed settlement will resolve the Chambers Works case, a 2019 lawsuit against Delaware-based E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. (now known as EIDP, Inc.) and other DuPont-related entities and comes after a month of trial proceedings in U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The agreement will also resolve three other lawsuits regarding specific sites in New Jersey, the statewide claims for the firefighting material known as aqueous film-forming foam (AFFF), and DuPont and its related entities’ responsibilities under a PFAS Statewide Directive.
Besides EIDP, the other corporate defendants are The Chemours Company and The Chemours Company FC, LLC, both of which DuPont spun off in 2015; DuPont Specialty Products USA, LLC; Corteva Inc.; and DuPont de Nemours, Inc. In addition, DEP and the attorney general reached a settlement with co-defendant 3M in May, just a week before the Chambers Works trial was scheduled to start.
The companies have agreed to fully clean up contamination at four New Jersey sites and to pay $875 million in natural resource and other damages to the State for the harm that was caused to land, water and other sensitive natural resources, and to fund abatement projects, which will include drinking water treatment.
The affected sites are:
- Pompton Lakes Works, in Pompton Lakes and Wanaque, Passaic County;
- The Parlin site, in Sayreville, Middlesex County;
- The Repauno site, in Greenwich Township, Gloucester County; and
- Chambers Works, in Pennsville and Carney’s Point, Salem County.
With the addition of this latest victory, New Jersey will recover over approximately $3 billion from lawsuits it has commenced since 2019 to compensate the State and remediate the damage caused by PFAS and other pollutants.
In May 2025, 3M agreed to pay up to $450 million for PFAS contamination at the Chambers Works and Parlin sites and throughout the State. In 2023, Solvay Specialty Polymers agreed to spend $393 million to ensure the remediation of contamination and compensate the public for PFAS contamination near Solvay’s facility in West Deptford, Gloucester County. More recently, co-defendant Arkema, Inc. agreed to settle its responsibility for contamination at the same site, including paying $33.95 million for remediation and damages combined and guaranteeing $75 million for a reserve fund.
Settlement Terms
The payments by the DuPont settling entities will occur annually over 25 years. The settlement payments include the following:
- $875 million will be allocated primarily between damages for restoration of injured natural resources and abatement funds, to be held by DEP in a dedicated trust account to address PFAS and other contamination, including through the provision of drinking water treatment;
- Approximately $125 million of the $875 million will go towards costs, fees, penalties, and punitive damages.
To ensure that all the cleanup work is paid without public funds, the companies also agreed:
- To create a remediation funding source of up to $1.2 billion; and
- To establish an additional reserve fund of $475 million to ensure that if any one of the companies goes bankrupt or otherwise fails to fulfill their responsibilities to the state, taxpayers won’t be left with the bill.
This extra financial protection is critical to the settlement to ensure that there is enough funding to protect human health and the environment at these sites, as DEP’s lawsuit alleged that DuPont attempted to avoid this liability when it spun off Chemours.
The DuPont settlement will be published in the New Jersey Register and available for public comment. The 3M settlement was published in the New Jersey Register on July 21 and comments can be submitted through September 19. Both settlements are subject to approval by the U.S. District Court.
Published September 2025
