The company, which was charged criminally, has paid millions of dollars in fines and penalties on top of the $300 million it and its successors have paid so far to clean up the 1,250-acre site — an ongoing effort with no end in sight.
Hill complained the deal was negotiated without any local input, wants 250 acres of the site that BASF could develop to instead be given to the township, and says a contingency fund to address any future undiscovered contamination should be part of it. Michael Matthews lost his best friend to a rare childhood cancer at age 12. Another friend died of the same illness.
BASF took over the site in 2010, two decades after plant operations ceased, and emphasizes that it did nothing to contaminate the site. But many residents said they won't go anywhere near the site even after remediation work is completed. One man who attended a public hearing on the settlement Wednesday said he won't even drive past the site with his car window rolled down.
BASF is pumping almost a million gallons a day from the ground, treating it to remove contaminants, and discharging it back into the ground. About 341,000 cubic yards of soil has been dug up and treated at the site — enough to fill 136,400 pickup truck beds.