By Frank Esposito
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: January 16, 2014 5:22 pm ET
Updated: January 16, 2014 5:23 pm ET
The borough of Paulsboro, N.J., has threatened plastics and chemicals maker Solvay Specialty Polymers USA LLC with a lawsuit over alleged water pollution coming from the firm's fluoropolymers plant in West Deptford, N.J.
Paulsboro Mayor W. Jeffery Hamilton also has asked New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — a potential Republican presidential candidate — to intervene on the borough's behalf.
In a Jan. 16 news release, Hamilton said that Solvay "must provide long-term protection for Paulsboro's drinking water…or face the borough in Federal court." He also criticized the state's Department of Environmental Protection.
"Despite more than 20 years of oversight by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, toxic chemicals from Solvay's West Deptford facility continue to taint Paulsboro's drinking water supply," Hamilton said in the release. "Every Paulsboro resident…has a fundamental right to safe drinking water.
"Solvay is the source of the problem and Solvay must provide and pay for a solution," he added.
According to the release, groundwater and sediments in and around Paulsboro contain a range of perfluorochemicals — feedstocks used to make fluoropolymers — that originated at the Solvay plant. Paulsboro's drinking water currently meets federal and state safety standards, but, according to the release, PFC contamination in West Virginia recently has been linked to "a number of potential adverse health effects."
The release also refers to Solvay's "laggard cleanup" and "apparent indifference to Paulsboro's concerns," as well as the NJDEP's "failure to intervene properly and effectively." It adds that Solvay canceled a Jan. 6 meeting to discuss recent water sampling results and to discuss possible solutions.
In a Jan. 15 letter to Christie — who's currently embroiled in a traffic scandal — Hamilton asks the governor to bring together state officials to respond to "a public health issue that has been ignored for too long."
Paulsboro is a borough of about 6,000 residents located across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. It's about five miles west of the Solvay plant in West Deptford.
Officials with Solvay could not be reached for comment. Specialty Polymers is a unit of Brussels, Belgium-based Solvay SA.
In August, officials with Solvay in West Deptford told Plastics News that the firm was investigating information about alleged pollution from the plant. The information came from water samples taken by the NJDEP in 2009. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network — a Bristol, Pa.-based environmental group — had asked the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to look at the issue.
Solvay officials also told PN at the time that the firm had stopped using a certain perfluorochemical — known as PFNA — at the site in 2010, ahead of a voluntary program to eliminate the use of the chemical. | 
