Possible class action suit in DePue?
DEPUE — A legal team from Chicago and Texas is probing lawns and homes in DePue in an environmental investigation a source says could erupt into a class action lawsuit against former and present owners of DePue’s New Jersey Zinc Superfund site.
Bottom line: Lawyers are investigating whether wind erosion and surface and groundwater movement have allowed toxic heavy metals to migrate from DePue’s New Jersey Zinc Superfund site into residents’ yards and homes, where they could pose health concerns.
“Right now, (attorneys) are involved in an ongoing investigation of what appears to be serious contamination covering the entire village of DePue,” Eric Wetzel, a spokesperson for Chicago firm Korein Tillery, said this week.
Korein Tillery lawyers, along with lawyers from Texas plaintiff’s firm Nix, Patterson and Roach, have conducted the investigation over the past year. It includes soil and home testing in residential areas of DePue, Wetzel said.
“One potential outcome is the filing of a class action suit against (former plant operators) Exxon-Mobil, Viacom, and Horsehead Industries,” Wetzel said.
Wetzel indicated it would likely be a civil suit, and noted health tests “are definitely in the works” for DePue residents possibly affected by heavy metal contamination.
“At this point, anyone who is determined to have legitimately been harmed by contamination in the village could be named as plaintiffs in a possible suit,” Wetzel said.
Although health officials at public information sessions in DePue this year said no major studies have been done recently linking DePue’s Superfund site to human illness, residents of DePue have long been concerned about possible health risks tied to contamination at the site.
Wetzel said over time, heavy metals can collect in peoples’ blood, bones and brain tissue, which can result in systemic illness.
Lawyers also are investigating whether Superfund contaminants were spread throughout DePue by people who took contaminated soil and slag from the DePue’s former zinc plant operations for use in civic projects or residential landscaping. Wetzel said lawyers who’ve studied similar situations have found that was a common practice.
Regardless of how heavy metals and contaminants from the Superfund may have migrated around DePue, Wetzel says their toxic particles don’t disappear.
In probes of soil and tests in homes in residential DePue, Wetzel said legal researchers found concentrations of heavy metals including lead, cadmium, zinc and arsenic. Those materials match some contaminants left behind at the former New Jersey Zinc plant, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA had designated DePue’s New Jersey Zinc site as a Superfund site in 1989, in response to known soil and water contamination from former zinc smelting and chemical production facilities operating there under various owners, throughout the bulk of the 20th century. The plants produced zinc products for use in automotive, appliances, paint and acids.
In the past, the village of DePue has locked horns with the corporate giants it says left behind a toxic mess at DePue’s Superfund site. In recent court skirmishes, DePue has sparred with current Superfund owners CBS Operations, Inc. and Exxon/Mobil Corp., in attempts to extract nuisance fines from the companies and prod mandated environmental cleanup of the site.
Village President Eric Bryant said last year, he contacted Klint Bruno, a Korein Tillery attorney and a former local student athlete Bryant had coached, to tell him about DePue’s Superfund woes.
“I called to ask him if he’d look into our problem, and it kind of transformed into this,” Bryant said this week.
Bryant said a class action lawsuit for environmental contamination would be a first for DePue — and he’d welcome it.
“We’ve always felt we were kind of dumped on with that (Superfund). For what this village has experienced, this could be a big shining light,” Bryant said of the firms’ legal investigation.
Wetzel had no comment on whether a possible class action suit would name the village of DePue as a plaintiff.
Wetzel said legal consultants will be on hand to discuss their studies with residents from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Nov. 2 to Nov. 6 at the VFW Hall at 202 W. First St. in DePue.
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