TOMS RIVER, NJ – If you lived in Toms River in the 1980s, during the heyday of the Ciba-Geigy chemical corporation’s manufacturing history, you wouldn’t know that the company was dumping deadly cancer-causing toxins into the nearby Toms River. You wouldn’t know that the company was burying tons of hazardous cancer-causing waste in pits located at their quiet and secluded plant in the middle of the forest.
No, you would see wide open spaces, farms, and twentieth-century Americana on full display in a commercial that had nothing to do with what the company actually did.
The commercial didn’t promote products or explain what the company did. Instead, it was a motivational piece about the ‘youth in America’ and how everyone depends on the youth of rural America.
The commercial was made as they were poisoning the water those children were drinking in Toms River. We all should have seen the red flags. Why is an obscure chemical company running propaganda-style ads promoting rural America on television? There was no sales angle. There was no pitch to buy a product. There was just a message that everything is awesome and we should continue eating the apple pies mom was making with contaminated drinking water.
After watching the commercial, there should have been red flags. It was a chemical company propaganda piece that was intended to make people feel good about living next to a chemical plant that was dumping toxic waste into the environment.
Now, the administration of Governor Phil Murphy has settled a decades-old lawsuit against the company and its new owners, BASF, that will essentially clear the slate for the new owners of the EPA Superfund Site here. In exchange for 1,000 acres, the state will allow BASF to keep 250 acres to build a city on top of the land that was once one of America’s worst Superfund sites.
That settlement, opposed by local elected officials and the people of Toms River was pushed through by Governor Phil Murphy.
Toms River Mayor Maurice “Mo” Hill and his successor Mayor-elect Dan Rodrick, opposed that state settlement. Rodrick said he would to see the entire 1,250-acre parcel be preserved and left alone to allow nature to reclaim the land. He opposes any future development at the site.
In October, Toms River and the environmental group Save Barnegat Bay announced they are suing the state and BASF in state appellate court to overturn a settlement reached in August between the state and German chemical company BASF over decades of environmental damage in and around the former Ciba-Geigy chemical plant, according to the AP.