Response to Professor Susskind: The Camden, New Jersey, Experience with Environmental Mediation

Melvin R. Primas Jr.

Melvin R. Primas Jr. is the Mayor of Camden, New Jersey.

In the July 1987 Environmental Law Reporter, I was particularly interested in Professor Lawrence Susskind's description of his efforts with the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority (CCMUA) issue.¹ Unfortunately, Professor Susskind's article leaves several misimpressions that deserve to be corrected.

First, the report asserts that Campbell Soup Company has "threatened to leave [Camden] many times."² In my decade as either a member of City Council or Mayor of Camden, Campbell has never threatened to leave. They have, however, continued to invest millions of dollars in the city. This includes Campbell's commitment to build a world headquarters on the waterfront, which is serving as an anchor of a project that is bringing a $42 million state aquarium here. In a time when many individuals and firms have chosen to desert urban areas, Campbell has been an active participant in trying to help build this city.

Second, Professor Susskind writes, "there is one big employer in Camden — Campbell's Soup Company."³ Actually, Campbell is not even the largest private employer. Also, state and local government in Camden have more employees than Campbell Soup. In addition, Camden is increasingly becoming the "hub" of the South Jersey health system with three dynamic hospitals and a campus of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey; together, these operations have more employees than Campbell.

Third, Professor Susskind writes, "Campbell's Soup pumps its effluent directly into the sewage system with no pretreatment at all. That creates a problem for Camden. But Campbell's Soup says, 'If you make us pretreat, we'll leave.' So the city of Camden says: 'okay.'"⁴ Actually, Campbell provides the level of pretreatment necessary for our sewage treatment system and creates no problem for Camden. Campbell has neither made the threat nor has the City capitulated, as asserted. Camden's real sewage problems stem from the fact that the sewer system was built at a time when storm and sanitary sewers ran together and consequently every time it rains, or every time a fire hydrant is opened, that water ultimately requires treatment. This problem is coupled with a higher than normal nonpayment rate of sewer bills because of the economic distress faced by many Camden citizens.

Fourth, the article asserts, "[p]arenthetically you may wonder how such a poor city could sustain 14 years of high-priced litigation. The answer, it seems, is that the city of Camden had financial help from Campbell's Soup."⁵ The litigation ran for 2 years, not 14. The City Council voted funds for the great majority of the litigation which, as expensive as it was, did not even begin to approach the cost that would have been borne by citizens under CCMUA's plan. Campbell did in fact provide a small portion of the legal costs — a worthy contribution to fight a plan that would have bankrupted the city where they are headquartered.

Fifth, Professor Susskind takes great pride in his proposed "solution" of capping annual sewer charges for those making under $10,000 a year.⁶ He indicates that it was almost accepted and implies that it would have solved all the problems. He fails to point out that advocates of this position never adequately dealt with the question of the enormous load this would have shifted on to people earning $11,000-$12,000 a year, and the basic fact that it never dealt with the real problem of the home owners in Camden paying much more than the wealthy house owners in the suburbs.

I was disappointed that Professor Susskind's article never addressed the equities that he, as the representative of the New Jersey Public Advocate, should have been focusing on. The basic question that he never addressed is why the City of Camden, the victim of historical circumstances that gave it the area's most antiquated sewer system and least able-to-pay constituency, should pay more for sewage treatment than any other municipality in the CCMUA system; and especially why this should occur when the City of Camden alone among the municipalities in the system was not previously discharging into a waterway that required only secondary treatment.

Fortunately, the state's new Public Advocate (Alfred Slocum, Professor of Law at Rutgers University) had a much clearer view of those equities. He consequently [17 ELR 10464] helped the parties arrive at a solution that totally satisfied no one, but probably is the best that could be built given the tremendous problems that all of us have inherited. At least the poor people in the City of Camden will pay no more per household for sewage treatment than their well-to-do neighbors even though the individual homes in Camden generate less flow per household.

In conclusion, I think the comments of Mr. Susskind about the City of Camden, Judge Lowengrub, and one of the community's staunchest supporting industries, were unfair and irresponsible. This misrepresentation allows Mr. Bruce J. Terris, another speaker at the forum, to promote a misconception.⁷

Please be assured that our City, while continuing to face tremendous challenges, is also experiencing significant growth. Having removed the threat and uncertainty of the sewer charge issue, we continue to attract new business and forge a partnership between local government, citizens and employers that make Camden a substantially stronger place than it was even a few years ago.

1. Suskind, The Special Master as Environmental Mediator, 17 ELR 10239 (July 1987).

2. Id. at 10239.

3. Id.

4. Id.

5. Id.

6. Id. at 10241.

7. Terris, Environmentalists' Citizen Suits, 17 ELR 10254, at 10255 (July 1987) ("The industries are politically powerful, and they have a good deal of prestige within their communities. Local governments have a reluctance to go after people who may decide to move out. We heard yesterday about the relationship between Camden, New Jersey and Campbell's Soup. While perhaps an extreme example, the Camden dilemma is repeated in less acute form across the country.")