Esther E. Berezofsky
PFAS, Lead-Contaminated Water, Toxic Exposure, and Environmental Mass Torts
While nothing can undo the long term harm caused by the egregious conduct which caused the exposure of Flint’s children to lead contaminated water, this settlement is a first step in providing relief from the harm caused to the Flint community.
The Water Under Toms River
Toms River Chemical Company began making dyes in 1952 at a plant three miles west of the business district of Toms River, New Jersey. The company, later known as Ciba-Geigy, added azo dyes, epoxy resins and other specialty chemicals in 1959, and from about 1952 through 1977 its solid and liquid process wastes went into some twenty disposal areas — a landfill of drums, about thirty acres of lagoons and basins — above groundwater that flows southeast toward the Toms River. In the mid-1960s, three shallow wells in the Holly Street well field were contaminated with aniline-based dyes, and nitrobenzene was reported as well; one of the wells was sealed in 1967 and the other two in 1983. That year, EPA placed the site on the National Priorities List.
Then came the numbers no town wants counted. New Jersey’s health department found ninety childhood-cancer diagnoses in Dover Township, which includes Toms River, from 1979 through 1995, where about sixty-seven would have been expected. All cancers combined and leukemia among girls were significantly higher than state rates. In the Toms River section itself, investigators counted twenty-four diagnoses where 14.1 would have been expected. The state’s case-control study later associated two prenatal exposures with a higher risk of leukemia in girls: drinking water from the Parkway well field and air emissions from the Ciba-Geigy plant.
Esther E. Berezofsky was lead counsel for families whose children developed cancer. Under a tolling and standstill agreement that took effect February 1, 1998, the families and the companies, with technical, scientific and medical experts, exchanged detailed factual, scientific and technical information. After more than three years of discussions through alternative dispute resolution, sixty-nine families settled in December 2001 with Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Union Carbide and United Water Toms River. Court records filed for the approval of the minors’ settlements later showed that the families would share at least $13.27 million.
The ground itself was eventually made to answer. A stacked-drum disposal area at the site had been believed to hold about 35,000 drums; in less than a year of excavation, completed in 2004, 47,055 drums were removed. Full-scale groundwater treatment had begun in March 1996, and in 2023 the system was treating about 800,000 gallons a day. EPA reported the source cleanup complete in 2012.
Before the Law, the Mind
Berezofsky came to environmental litigation already fluent in what disasters do to communities. After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Wayne State University, in 1980 and 1982, she practiced as a clinical psychologist, evaluating people with post-traumatic stress and consulting for a national network of law firms on community trauma after Three Mile Island and Times Beach. At Rutgers Law School, where she graduated in 1987, she published an article, “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Technological Disaster,” years before she would represent towns living through such disasters.
She was a name partner in a Philadelphia plaintiffs’ firm and founded Berezofsky Law Group in New Jersey. In 2019 she joined Motley Rice as senior counsel, when the firm opened offices in Cherry Hill and Philadelphia; she is now a member of the firm.
Children Six and Younger
In 2014 the City of Flint switched its water supply to the Flint River. The system had no corrosion control, and lead reached residents’ homes and bodies at levels as high as 880 times the EPA’s legal limit. Berezofsky joined the plaintiffs’ executive committee, which the court later appointed, with co-lead counsel Ted Leopold and Michael Pitt, as class counsel for the settlement.
In August 2020 the State of Michigan agreed to pay $600 million. On November 10, 2021, U.S. District Judge Judith E. Levy granted final approval, and with the City of Flint, McLaren and Rowe, the settling defendants’ payments came to $626.25 million. The allocation favored the youngest: 64.5 percent of the net fund for children six and younger at the time of the crisis, 10 percent for ages seven through eleven and 5 percent for ages twelve through seventeen, with 15 percent for adults, 3 percent for property owners and renters, half a percent for businesses, 2 percent for special-education programs and $35 million reserved for future minor plaintiffs.
Approval was only the beginning of the work. Claims had to be reviewed and assigned to one of thirty categories, and releases signed. On December 5, 2025, the court adopted the special master’s recommendation, and the initial award letters, for about 7,000 residential-property claims, went out the following week. Adult-injury claimants received letters for partial payments on June 24, 2026, and by July 9, 2026, about 12,500 payment awards had been issued.
The Rockford Tannery
Wolverine World Wide began treating leather with 3M’s Scotchgard at its tannery in Rockford, Michigan, in 1958. Decades ago, Wolverine regularly dumped chemical-laced sludge in northern Kent County. In 2017, property owners there brought Zimmerman v. 3M as a class action, alleging that PFAS had contaminated their drinking water and property; the contamination was traced to the House Street Disposal Area. Berezofsky represented the property owners. On March 29, 2023, U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou of the Western District of Michigan gave final approval to a $54 million settlement with Wolverine and 3M.
The class covered about 1,700 properties north of Grand Rapids, in three subclasses: owners on November 1, 2017, whose homes were switched to municipal water; owners on that date whose homes received filters installed by officials; and others with PFAS detected in their water. A points system divided the money, weighing higher PFAS levels in a home’s water and households of more than five people. Berezofsky called the settlement “significant compensation for those people who had elevated PFAS level in their water.” It covered property damages — loss of use and convenience and diminished property value — and left residents free to pursue future personal-injury claims.
PFAS Work in Flanders
Berezofsky’s PFAS practice crosses the Atlantic. She represents governmental entities and residents in the United States, has consulted for the Flemish minister of justice and the environment on PFAS matters involving 3M, and works on environmental matters in the Netherlands. The Belgian engagement concerns PFOS pollution that originated at 3M’s plant in Zwijndrecht.
On July 6, 2022, the Flemish government and 3M Belgium announced an agreement under which 3M Belgium would invest about €571 million: €115 million for PFAS treatment technology at the Zwijndrecht site; €250 million for priority remedial actions, including the remediation of residential gardens and of agricultural and recreational land near the plant; €5 million for qualifying local farmers; €100 million for the Flemish government to use in connection with the plant’s PFAS emissions; and up to €100 million in financing and support for the Oosterweel project.
After the Approval Order
Each remedy needs proof of its own. In Flint, a child’s award depends on age at the time of the crisis and on the claim category; some awards, for people who were young children during the crisis and have documented high lead exposure, are expected to be around $100,000. A minor’s award must be paid through a structured settlement or a court-approved trust, and in the pooled trust each child has an account of his or her own, managed by Huntington Bank under court oversight and paid to the child at adulthood. In North Kent, points for a home’s PFAS level and household size set each owner’s share. In Flanders, the agreement set money aside for residential gardens, for the farmland near the plant and for qualifying local farmers.
Compensation, treatment and trust administration depend on the individual file for each child, family, well and farm.
