Esther E. Berezofsky

PFAS in Drinking Water

Berezofsky’s cases trace contaminants from industrial sources into drinking water and address exposure, causation, cleanup, and compensation.

Dye in the Well Field

Toms River Chemical Company began making dyes and resins west of the New Jersey town in 1952. Renamed Ciba-Geigy, the plant later produced pigments and epoxy additives and operated until 1990. Sludge and process waste went into disposal areas, lagoons and thousands of drums. Groundwater flowed east toward the Toms River and wetlands; homes and an elementary school stood near the property.

State health investigators reported that dyes and nitrobenzene were detected in Holly Street well-field samples in 1965 and 1966. They could not reconstruct the full mixture, duration or household dose. Later releases left a groundwater plume and extensive soil contamination. EPA listed the site for Superfund cleanup in 1983 and required extraction and treatment.

Between December 2003 and November 2004, contractors removed 47,055 drums from the Stacked Drum Area and sent their contents off site. EPA reports that more than seventeen billion gallons of groundwater have been treated. The plume has contracted, residential irrigation wells were sealed and the agency now says the surrounding community is not affected by it. Treatment continues because buried waste can outlast the plant that made it.

Eighty-Seven Diagnoses

New Jersey identified eighty-seven childhood-cancer diagnoses in Dover Township, now Toms River Township, from 1979 through 1995. All childhood cancers combined, all cancers among girls and acute lymphocytic leukemia among girls were statistically elevated against state rates. Within the Toms River section, investigators counted twenty-four diagnoses where fourteen had been expected.

Families brought civil claims alleging that pollution from a particular site caused their children’s diseases despite the limits of the existing findings. Berezofsky served as lead counsel, and Ciba-Geigy and two other companies paid approximately $13.2 million to settle claims for sixty-nine families. The agreement exchanged the risks of litigating exposure and disease across decades for compensation without a judicial finding of medical causation.

Berezofsky had practiced as a clinical psychologist and consulted on community trauma after Three Mile Island and Times Beach. At Rutgers Law, she published a 1987 article on post-traumatic stress after technological disasters. Toxic-tort doctrine still demanded separate proof of source, pathway, dose and cause. Her earlier field addressed a different injury: living for years among warnings, tests and unanswered questions about one’s home.

The River in the Pipes

Flint changed its municipal supply to the Flint River in April 2014. The treatment plant did not use corrosion control, and the water stripped lead from service lines and plumbing. Residents reported discoloration, odor, rashes and hair loss while officials described the supply as safe. Children encountered lead when developing brains are especially vulnerable and public-health authorities recognize no safe exposure level.

Berezofsky became class counsel and joined the plaintiffs’ executive committee. In August 2020, Michigan agreed to contribute $600 million. Under the final allocation, 79.5 percent of the total fund was assigned to child claim categories: 64.5 percent for children six and younger when first exposed, 10 percent for ages seven through eleven and 5 percent for ages twelve through seventeen. Another 2 percent funded programs for Genesee County schoolchildren.

The district court granted final approval on November 10, 2021. Additional settling defendants brought the approved amount to $626.25 million. A later Sixth Circuit opinion addressed fees and expenses, not an appeal from final approval, and left the settlement in place. Approval established the fund and its rules, after which claims review and distribution began.

The Award Letter

Claims had to be reviewed, categorized and valued; releases had to be executed; minors’ awards required court-supervised protection. Residential-property payments began in December 2025. Initial partial payments for approved adult-injury claims began in June 2026. Children who remain minors generally must receive funds through an approved trust or structured settlement rather than as unrestricted cash.

The Special Master’s July 9, 2026 report recorded approximately 12,500 payment awards issued through July 8, with more than $26.5 million authorized. A batch expected on July 23 was projected to include more property and business claims and partial payments for eligible teen claimants, bringing the cumulative number of awards to about 14,600 if issued as scheduled.

Berezofsky’s 2020 statement acknowledged that compensation could help families but could not remove lead already absorbed by a child.

Leather Hill

North of Grand Rapids, the route to private wells began with waterproof leather. In Zimmerman v. 3M, owners alleged that Wolverine Worldwide used PFAS-containing Scotchgard in its Rockford tannery and disposed of waste across Kent County. The complaint described the House Street dump as Leather Hill, where barrels, scraps and sludge became entangled with vegetation, and alleged that PFAS migrated into residential wells. 3M and Wolverine denied wrongdoing and liability.

Berezofsky served as co-lead class counsel and led negotiations. On March 29, 2023, U.S. District Judge Hala Y. Jarbou approved a $54 million settlement. The class covered qualifying North Kent Study Area owners who held property on November 1, 2017 and lacked municipal water. Subclasses accounted for homes moved to municipal service, homes offered filtration and other eligible properties.

Payments addressed loss of use, diminished value, inconvenience, and emotional distress associated with contaminated property. The largest amounts went to owners whose wells tested above Michigan maximum contaminant levels. The agreement resolved defined property claims without deciding disputed conduct or whether PFAS caused an individual illness.

Across the Scheldt

Berezofsky remains a member of Motley Rice in Cherry Hill. Her PFAS work includes representation of residents and public entities in the United States, consulting for the Flemish minister responsible for justice and the environment, and matters in the Netherlands. The Belgian engagement concerns 3M’s plant at Zwijndrecht, beside the Scheldt across from Antwerp.

In July 2022, the Flemish government and 3M Belgium entered an agreement under which the company committed €571 million. The money covered new treatment technology, support for affected farmers, soil testing and cleanup beyond the plant, funds tied to plant emissions, and support for the Oosterweel project. A 3M filing for the quarter ending June 30, 2026 reported that the work and spending were continuing.

After the Approval Order

Berezofsky’s environmental cases continue long after a settlement or order. Toms River required decades of pumping, treatment, and monitoring. Flint required reviewers to evaluate claims and courts to protect payments made to children. North Kent required testing well by well and sorting properties by what the samples showed. In Flanders, the work follows PFAS through water, soil, farms, and the treatment systems meant to remove it.

Each remedy needs proof of its own. A trust must identify the person entitled to payment. A water system must identify the well, PFAS level, and treatment it needs. A cleanup order must say what will be removed, how the technology works, and how the parties will measure success. The lawsuit assigns responsibility; the follow-through determines whether relief reaches the household.

Keeping the Household in View

Berezofsky’s training as a clinical psychologist appears in the scale at which she describes environmental harm. Exposure is measured through samples and epidemiology, but it is lived through schools, pregnancies, medical surveillance, property decisions, and years of uncertainty about water that once seemed ordinary.

Her docket joins those records without treating a community as a single undifferentiated claimant. A common source makes collective proof possible. Treatment, compensation, and trust administration still depend on the individual file for each child, family, well, or farm.