well it's become one of the most intense issues at the Jersey Shore recently residents inflamed over the state's proposed settlement for the siba gaigi site in Toms River a Superfund Site notorious for its possible connection to Childhood Cancer clusters in the area locals and activists worry the deal is letting polluters off the hook and they let State officials know during a Monday night public hearing Ted Goldberg was there the last time the dep came to Toms River they heard a simple message from people who were angry about a proposed natural resource damages settlement to remedy the siba Gigi Superfund Site are you treating these complaints with transparency and are you treating them with empathy a month and a half later the dep was back in Toms River officials explained how the settlement would create open areas that have been cleaned up and how BASF the successor company to see BAGI will continue to Monitor and remediate any polluted groundwater we're here tonight to provide you with with transparency and empathy the information and perspective necessary to allow you to draw your own conclusions hopefully you will see that for where this action where this proposed settlement fits in it's an appropriate Fair proposal made by BASF a lot of people at the hearing don't trust the proposal because they don't trust BASF they're skeptical that the chemical company isn't telling the truth when it says some areas are clean enough to be open to the public we're relying on BASF to do the sampling report the test results and based upon that analysis determined that that area around the around the EPA site is clean enough how do we know that that land is not injured there are plus or minus 14 000 contaminated sites in New Jersey undergoing remediation right now department does not have the resources or the funding to go out and independently sample or use a third party to do that sampling we rely on these license site remediation professionals others at the hearing have issues with the dep they argue this proposal was hammered out in secret while the dep argues it had to be done you're going down two feet with your with your drilling to find out if that if that's what's contaminated well are you putting in any foundations and some of these buildings you're going to put up are you going to do any when you do the water restoration for the thing are you digging up the property what are you doing you're not informing anybody of anything that's going on this is a bad deal we were never involved in the negotiations on this natural resource damage settlement we were lectured to we never saw the natural resource damage assessment in dollars and cents the conversations that we have and information that we exchange could be potentially detrimental to our ultimate litigation position if we're unable to reach settlement so those conversations are generally considered to be confidential and deliberative do you officials also explained that if the proposal falls apart and they go to court there's a good chance Toms River has to wait for any benefits and they could get less than what's in the current proposal our experience over the last 25 years has shown if you go to the litigation route it's 10 plus years in complex cases we have some cases that were filed in 2007 that have still not fully resolved to this day the dep is taking public comments until April 5th with residents here hoping their voices will be heard in Toms River I'm Ted Goldberg NJ Spotlight news [Music]