EPA wants paper company to pay for Passaic cleanup

ELMWOOD PARK, N.J. - Struggling northern New Jersey manufacturer Marcal Paper Mills Inc., which is already trying to resurrect itself out of bankruptcy, now faces a nearly $1 billion claim from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA and other government agencies have filed a claim in Marcal's bankruptcy case for $946 million to help clean a stretch of the Passaic River that federal environmental officials say was polluted with dioxins and PCBs from Marcal's plant.

Pollution in the lower Passaic has been blamed on scores of sources, including a former herbicide factory in Newark. But since the area is on the federal Superfund list, the EPA has the right to charge a single contributor for the entire cleanup, according to an agency spokesman.

"The pollution has many sources and we need to make sure that the river is cleaned up," EPA spokesman David Kleusner told The Record of Bergen County for Saturday newspapers.

The Elmwood Park manufacturer says the EPA's demands are holding up a bankruptcy reorganization plan in which a private equity firm has agreed to provide millions.

"The (reorganization) plan does not contemplate the payment of a $946 million claim," company attorney Michael Sirota recently told The Star-Ledger of Newark.

Marcal Paper Mills makes toilet paper, kitchen towels, napkins and facial tissue.
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