Murphy DEP Redacts The Types Of Cancers Suffered By Victims Of Toms River Former Ciba-Geigy Superfund Site In BASF Sweetheart Deal
This could be the grandmother of all redactions.
I have never seen anything like this before in over 40 years of work on environmental issues. So I thought I’d post it immediately before I got through reading all the relevant documents.
The Murphy DEP redacted the names of specific cancers suffered by victims of chemical poisoning in Tom River NJ from the former Ciba-Geigy Superfund site (see above).
Why would DEP want to hide the specific types of cancers that victims suffered?
I can understand why lawyers for BASF would want to redact that kind information, as it would tend to help victims’ lawsuits.
But why would DEP want to keep that information secret?
Here is how DEP tried to justify this secrecy:
DEP claims that they are merely following the law and redacting “personal information” and “medical history”.
I strongly doubt that this was the intent of the law or what the law actually says (see Executive Order #26).
I doubt that legitimate concerns with personal privacy and medical history that are protected by law were meant to mask the types of cancers that victims suffer, diseases that victims themselves specified in public comments.
DEP is clearly abusing the law here, because merely redacting he name of the victim would adequately protect legitimate privacy concerns about personal information and medical history.
And the only party that benefits from that secrecy is BASF. So once again, DEP is protecting corporate polluters and covering up important information.
I came across this information because I was disgusted but not surprised when DEP recently finalized the sweetheart deal with BASF on “natural resource damages”. I was particularly critical of how DEP failed to respond to public comments. So I filed an OPRA public records request for all public comments submitted. see:
The public comments are extensive, over 500 pages. I am now wading through them and finding some astonishing things I did not know. This new information makes the DEP deal even worse than I had imagined. Some of the comments, especially from victims, are emotionally devastating.
I will write about that later, but for now I just wanted to put this out there.
Maybe some intrepid reporter might ask DEP to explain. Glad to provide the documents upon request. Or maybe a legal eagle out there can educate me on the law that applies here.