From Observer-Tribune:

New Providence-based Lucent Technologies, as successor to AT&T, has agreed to pay $1.2 million for groundwater contamination at nine sites it owns in Chester Township, Chester Borough, Berkeley Heights, Hanover, Holmdel, Kearny, and New Providence.

Lawrence Hajna, a spokesman for the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), said on Friday that the $1.2 million will be used to buy and protect environmentally sensitive land in the area’s watershed.

Hajna said the DEP would consider requests from municipalities for land to be protected. Mayor William Cogger said he would contact the DEP and hoped some of the $1.2 million would be spent to protect land in the township.

“The funds are to compensate the public for lost benefits of natural resources,” Hajna said.

He said the $1.2 million was based on a complex formula that considered the extent of damages, among other factors.

The Lucent sites are in various stages of remediation and all had contamination of chlorinated solvents. The contamination dates back to the 1950s but the DEP only became involved in the late 1980s.

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