You asked for introductions from the users of this system -- My name is
Phyllis Bross and I am an attorney for the State of New Jersey - my
client is the NJ Dept of Environmental Protection. A major part of my
work as a Deputy Attorney General is providing legal advice to Assistant
Commissioner Gimello at the Department concerning brownfield
cleanups, regulations and statutes. Also, last year, I, along with George
Schlosser from my office, negotiated the first prospective purchaser
agreement for our State on behalf of that Department which contained
reciprocal covenants not to sue and CERCLA contribution protection. It
was in the form of a Judicial Consent Decree and the Federal District
Court approved it. Since that time, I have negotiated an administrative
Prospective Purchaser Agreement with one New Jersey City for the
purchase of a portion of a Superfund site, and I am currently working on
two additional administrative agreements with prospective purchasers
for other sites. One of those pending matters concerns the purchase of
an orchard site, and the other is a brownfield site which will be reused
for wood processing after the prospective purchaser performs a
cleanup. In the City case, a premium was paid to my client agency at
settlement in exchange for various tasks (e.g., researching liens etc.),
and the same is expected for the two pending administrative agreements
if they are ultimately executed. The Department of Environmental
Protection,and my office, has been entering into these agreements in
order to promote brownfield reuse and other real estate acquisition and
development by providing the incentive of liability protections. However,
the Department is not likely to agree in the future to enter into many more
site specific prospective purchaser agreements containing covenants
not to sue -- especially where the would-be buyer (or other person) is
not prepared to volunteer to perform a site cleanup -- until we learn
what our Legislators want to do in the field of liability protections for new
landowners.