New Jersey PFAS Contamination: Your Tap Water, Your Health, and Your Right to Hold the Polluters Accountable
You opened the mail, or you saw the news, or you got the letter from your water utility — and now you know. The water you drank, cooked with, and gave your children for years contained chemicals that do not break down. They are in your blood right now. They have been there for years. And the same companies that put them there are counting on you not understanding what that means or what you can do about it.
We are Attorney911 — The Manginello Law Firm, PLLC. We handle toxic tort claims for people who were poisoned by someone else’s business decision, and what happened to New Jersey’s drinking water is exactly that kind of case. A Rutgers University study, published in a peer-reviewed environmental science journal in 2026, analyzed 19 years of water testing data from 47 water providers serving roughly 45% of New Jersey’s population. The study found that concentrations of PFAS — “forever chemicals” — in the state’s public drinking water dropped 55% after New Jersey became the first state in the nation to restrict them in 2018. PFOA, one of the most common and dangerous PFAS compounds, fell 55%. PFNA, another compound tied to specialty chemical manufacturing, dropped 50%.
That is the good news. The bad news is what the study also confirmed: before those restrictions took effect, PFAS levels in New Jersey’s tap water “far exceeded safe levels,” in the words of the study’s author, a cancer epidemiologist at Rutgers’ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. If you lived in an affected service area — and the study covered providers serving nearly half the state — you were drinking those chemicals. And the health problems they cause — cancers, thyroid disease, weakened immune response, developmental delays in children — can take years or decades to surface.
Here is what we want you to understand before anything else: your fear is justified. The science linking these compounds to serious disease is real and established. The companies that manufactured and discharged PFAS into New Jersey’s watersheds are identifiable and accountable under law. And New Jersey has a statutory weapon — the Spill Compensation and Control Act — that was built for exactly this situation. But the evidence that proves your individual exposure is on a clock, and that clock is already running. Every month you wait, the proof gets weaker.
What the Rutgers Study Found — and What It Means for Your Family
The study analyzed test results spanning 19 years across 47 water providers — a dataset deep enough to show not just a snapshot but a trend. The trend is real progress: New Jersey’s decision to become the first state to impose enforceable Maximum Contaminant Levels for PFAS compounds drove a documented, steep reduction in what was in the water. The study’s author put it plainly: “When we put these regulations in place, they do lead to these really steep reductions in these harmful exposures.”
But the study also revealed something the chemical companies do not want you to focus on: PFAS levels dropped in some water systems before the regulations were officially implemented. Paulsboro, in Gloucester County across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, reduced its PFNA contamination to undetectable levels two years before the state’s regulations took effect — after filing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the chemical manufacturer Solvay. That means some water providers knew, and acted, while others did not detect contamination until 2021, three years after the regulations were enacted.
If your water provider did not test until 2021, the question that matters to your case is: why not? And what were you drinking in the years before they looked?
The study’s author is now working to connect water-quality data to health outcomes — linking contamination records to cancer registry data to model how PFAS exposure correlates with cancer survival and other patient outcomes. A separate Rutgers research program called REPEL is actively recruiting men with prostate cancer to measure PFAS in their blood and in their tap water, trying to answer the exposure-source question that is at the center of every individual PFAS claim: was it the water, or something else?
That question — “was it the water?” — is the single hardest thing to prove in a PFAS case, and it is the question the chemical companies spend millions trying to make unanswerable. We will explain exactly how that proof is built, and why the evidence you can preserve right now is the foundation of all of it.
The Health Effects: What “Forever Chemicals” Actually Do to the Human Body
PFAS — per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are a family of thousands of synthetic chemicals used since the 1940s in nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, stain-resistant carpets, food packaging, and, critically for New Jersey, in industrial processes and firefighting foam. They are called “forever chemicals” for one reason: the carbon-fluorine bond that gives them their useful properties is one of the strongest bonds in organic chemistry. They do not break down in the environment. They do not break down in your body. They accumulate.
The health science is not speculative. It is established at the highest levels of scientific authority:
The International Agency for Research on Cancer — the World Health Organization’s cancer agency — classified PFOA as a Group 1 carcinogen (carcinogenic to humans) in 2024. PFOS was classified as Group 2B (possibly carcinogenic to humans). That is not a lawsuit claim. It is the conclusion of the world’s leading cancer-science body.
The C8 Science Panel — independent epidemiologists who studied a community exposed to PFOA-contaminated drinking water for years — found a “probable link” between PFOA and six health conditions: kidney cancer, testicular cancer, high cholesterol, thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and ulcerative colitis. These findings are the scientific backbone of PFAS litigation across the country.
Beyond the C8 findings, the broader scientific literature has linked PFAS exposure to:
- Cancers — kidney, testicular, and potentially others; the Rutgers researcher is specifically working to connect New Jersey contamination data to cancer registry records
- Thyroid disease — disruption of thyroid hormone production and function
- Weakened immune response — reduced antibody response to vaccines, increased susceptibility to infection
- Developmental delays in children — lower birth weight, delayed milestones, potential cognitive effects
- Liver damage — elevated liver enzymes, changes in liver function
- Increased cholesterol levels — a cardiovascular risk factor
The mechanism matters because it explains why the harm takes so long to appear and why the proof degrades with time. PFAS compounds bind to serum proteins in your blood — they do not dissolve in fat the way some other persistent chemicals do. They concentrate in the liver and kidneys. They are not metabolized; your body cannot break them down. They leave only slowly, through excretion, and the process takes years. Depending on the specific compound, the biological half-life of PFAS in human blood ranges from approximately 2 to 9 years. That means if you stopped drinking contaminated water today, half the PFAS in your blood would still be there two to nine years from now.
This is both the problem and the opportunity. The problem: if you wait years to get tested, your blood serum levels will have declined, making it harder to prove how high your exposure was. The opportunity: right now, if you were drinking contaminated water, the evidence is still in your blood — and a blood serum PFAS test can measure it. That test is the single most important piece of individual evidence in your case, and every month that passes without it makes your case harder to prove.
Which New Jersey Communities Were Affected
The Rutgers study analyzed data from 47 water providers serving approximately 45% of New Jersey’s population. That is not a handful of towns. It is nearly half the state. The study did not publish the full list of all 47 providers, but the data lives in New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection records, and the specific communities named in public reporting include some of the state’s most well-known contamination hotspots.
Willingboro Township, Burlington County: The Willingboro Municipal Utilities Authority, which serves roughly 31,000 residents from groundwater wells along the Delaware River corridor, detected PFAS levels well above state standards in 2021 — three years after New Jersey’s regulations took effect. The authority shut down an impacted well. The utility’s leadership has described the experience publicly:
“The residents definitely want better water, but I think they feel it’s unfair that the polluters don’t really pay the brunt of the cost to fix it.”
That statement captures the central injustice of PFAS contamination. Willingboro has spent close to $10 million on treatment systems. The utility expects to spend up to another $20 million to operate the equipment — costs that are being passed directly to the town’s ratepayers. The people who drank the contaminated water are paying to clean up the mess the chemical companies made.
Paulsboro, Gloucester County: Paulsboro, situated across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, became one of New Jersey’s most documented PFAS contamination sites — specifically for PFNA, a compound associated with specialty chemical manufacturing in the area. Paulsboro filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the chemical company Solvay, and the town ultimately reduced PFNA contamination to undetectable levels two years before the state’s regulations officially took effect. The Paulsboro-Solvay matter established a benchmark for what PFAS contamination cases can be worth in New Jersey.
The Delaware River Industrial Corridor: New Jersey’s geography makes it inherently vulnerable to PFAS contamination. The state sits along one of the most densely industrialized river corridors in the country. The Delaware River watershed has a documented history of industrial contamination. The state’s heavy reliance on groundwater sources — wells that draw from aquifers that can carry contamination from distant industrial sites — means that PFAS from legacy industrial discharges, firefighting foam used at military installations and airports, and landfill leachate can reach municipal water supplies miles from where the chemical was originally released.
The 47 providers in the Rutgers study are not the full universe of affected systems. They are the systems that had enough data for the study to analyze. Other providers may have contamination that was not tested for, or that was tested but not in a way that generated data the study could use. If your water provider sent you a notice about PFAS — or if you live in a community along the Delaware River corridor, near a military base or airport where firefighting foam was used, or near an industrial facility that used PFAS in its processes — you may have been exposed even if your town was not named in the study.
Who Is Responsible: The Companies Behind the Contamination
A PFAS contamination case is not one defendant. It is a family of defendants, each responsible for a different piece of the harm, and identifying all of them is the first step in building a case that actually covers your losses.
PFAS Chemical Manufacturers. The companies that designed, manufactured, and marketed PFAS compounds — knowing or allegedly knowing that these substances were persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic — are the primary targets. The dossier names Solvay specifically for the Paulsboro PFNA contamination. Other major historical PFAS producers include 3M, DuPont, Chemours (the 2015 spinoff from DuPont that holds much of the legacy PFAS liability), Daikin, and Arkema. These companies face a products liability theory: they designed and sold chemicals that are inherently dangerous, they allegedly failed to warn downstream users and communities about the health and environmental risks, and internal corporate documents — many already produced in prior PFAS litigation and multidistrict proceedings — may show knowledge of those risks predating public regulatory action.
Industrial Dischargers in Affected Watersheds. Beyond the manufacturers, the specific industrial facilities that discharged PFAS-containing process water, wastewater, or runoff into groundwater and surface water supplies are directly liable under New Jersey’s Spill Act. These are the plants, factories, and facilities along the Delaware River corridor and elsewhere in New Jersey whose operations sent PFAS into the watersheds feeding municipal well fields. The specific sources for Willingboro’s contamination were reportedly not identified by the utility — which means source identification through hydrogeological investigation and NJDEP permitting records is a critical early step.
Aqueous Film-Forming Foam (AFFF) Manufacturers. PFAS-containing firefighting foam — used for decades at military bases, airports, and training facilities throughout New Jersey — is a recognized and significant contamination source. Product liability claims against the formulators of AFFF are a recognized track in multidistrict litigation proceedings. If you live near a military installation or airport, AFFF may be a source of your exposure, and the AFFF manufacturers are potential defendants.
Water Providers. The article indicates that some New Jersey water providers acted before regulations mandated treatment, while others did not detect contamination until 2021 sampling — three years after the regulations were enacted. A water provider that delayed PFAS sampling or failed to implement treatment promptly may face negligence claims for breach of its duty to deliver water meeting state Maximum Contaminant Levels. The viability of this theory depends on whether the provider had or should have had knowledge of contamination earlier than it detected it. The Rutgers study’s finding that some providers acted before regulations were mandated is powerful evidence that earlier action was feasible — which means a provider that waited until 2021 may have to explain why.
New Jersey Law: The Spill Act and Your Right to Hold Polluters Accountable
New Jersey has something most states do not: a strict-liability environmental statute that was built for exactly this kind of case.
The New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act — known as the Spill Act — provides a statutory cause of action against any party that discharged a hazardous substance into the waters of the state. The critical features of the Spill Act for PFAS cases are:
Strict liability. You do not need to prove the discharger was negligent, careless, or at fault. You need to prove the discharge happened and that it caused the contamination. If a company released PFAS into groundwater that fed your water supply, the company is liable — regardless of whether it meant to or whether it was following the practices of its industry at the time.
Retroactive reach. The Spill Act applies to discharges that happened before the statute was enacted. PFAS contamination in New Jersey watersheds often began decades ago — the chemicals were used industrially since the mid-20th century. The Spill Act reaches back to those historical discharges.
Broad damages. The Spill Act covers cleanup and removal costs, natural resource damages, and damages to real property. For water providers like Willingboro, this means the $10 to $30 million in treatment costs could theoretically be recovered from the polluters rather than passed to ratepayers. For individual residents, the Spill Act provides one path; common-law theories provide others.
Common-Lold Theories Alongside the Statute. In addition to the Spill Act, New Jersey courts have recognized:
- Private and public nuisance — PFAS contamination of public drinking water supplies constitutes an unreasonable interference with public health and the community’s right to safe water. This is actionable by both water utilities (for remediation costs) and individual residents (for exposure and health consequences).
- Trespass — the invasion of PFAS compounds onto municipal well fields, aquifers, and private property constitutes a physical invasion supporting trespass claims against the discharging parties.
- Medical monitoring — New Jersey courts have recognized medical monitoring as a compensable cause of action in toxic exposure litigation. Residents exposed to elevated PFAS levels over extended periods face increased risk of cancer, thyroid disease, and immune disorders that warrant periodic medical surveillance — blood serum testing, cancer screening, thyroid function testing — and the cost of that monitoring is a recoverable damage.
- Products liability — design defect and failure to warn claims against PFAS manufacturers who designed and marketed compounds that are persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic, with alleged internal knowledge of health risks predating public regulatory action.
The Statute of Limitations — and the Discovery Rule. New Jersey’s personal injury statute of limitations is generally two years from the date of discovery of the injury and its relationship to the wrongful exposure. This is not two years from when you were exposed — it is two years from when you knew, or reasonably should have known, both that you were injured and that your injury may be connected to PFAS exposure.
This distinction is critical. Contamination in some New Jersey towns was not detected until 2021, despite regulations enacted in 2018. If you learned in 2021 that your water contained PFAS, and you were diagnosed with a health condition linked to PFAS after that discovery, your limitations clock may not have started until you had both pieces of the puzzle — the exposure and the injury. But this rule is not a guarantee, and it is not automatic. Some states impose an outer deadline — a statute of repose — that can cut off a claim even before discovery. You need a lawyer in your jurisdiction to check the specific deadline that applies to your facts. Waiting is the single most common way a valid PFAS claim dies.
No General Damages Cap. New Jersey does not impose a general statutory cap on personal injury or toxic tort damages. A jury can award the full measure of your economic and non-economic losses — medical costs, lost wages, pain and suffering, emotional distress — without a statutory ceiling reducing the award. This is a significant advantage over states that cap non-economic damages in civil cases.
Federal PFAS Standards: What the EPA Did and What Is Changing
The federal regulatory landscape for PFAS has been moving — and the direction of that movement has become uncertain.
In April 2024, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for PFAS under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The rule set enforceable Maximum Contaminant Levels for PFOA and PFOS at 4.0 parts per trillion — a number so vanishingly small it functions as a declaration that there is no comfortable amount of these chemicals in drinking water. The EPA set the Maximum Contaminant Level Goals — the health-based targets, not the enforceable limits — at zero. In the EPA’s own judgment, there is no level of PFOA or PFOS in drinking water that carries no health risk.
In May 2024, the EPA designated PFOA and PFOS as “hazardous substances” under CERCLA — the federal Superfund law. This designation, effective July 8, 2024, means that any entity releasing one pound or more of PFOA or PFOS in a 24-hour period must report the release to the National Response Center. More importantly, it makes the companies that released these chemicals responsible for cleanup costs under a liability framework that is strict, joint-and-several, and retroactive — reaching conduct from decades ago.
But the current federal administration has proposed rolling back parts of the PFAS regulatory framework. The EPA has proposed rescinding the drinking water limits for certain PFAS compounds beyond PFOA and PFOS — including PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA (GenX), and the Hazard Index for mixtures — and extending the compliance deadline for PFOA and PFOS from 2029 to 2031. These are proposed changes, not final rules, and they are subject to litigation. But they create regulatory uncertainty that affects ongoing remediation obligations.
Here is what does not change regardless of federal action: New Jersey’s state-level PFAS standards remain in force. New Jersey was the first state in the nation to establish enforceable Maximum Contaminant Levels for PFAS compounds in public drinking water, beginning with PFNA in 2018 and subsequently adding PFOA and PFOS. Those standards triggered mandatory sampling, public notification, and treatment requirements for public water systems across the state. A federal rollback does not erase New Jersey’s state standards. Water providers in New Jersey must still meet the state’s MCLs regardless of what the EPA does or does not do at the federal level.
This matters for your case in two ways. First, the state standards provide an enforceable benchmark for what was acceptable in your drinking water — and your water provider’s compliance or non-compliance with those standards is part of the record. Second, the CERCLA hazardous substance designation — if it survives the proposed rollbacks — gives federal cleanup authority and federal strict liability as an additional path alongside New Jersey’s Spill Act.
The Evidence Clock: Records That Prove Your Case Are Disappearing
Every PFAS case is built on a foundation of records — and those records are on clocks. Some are short. Some are already running out. Here is what exists, who holds it, and how fast it can legally disappear.
Historical Water Sampling Data. The testing data that the Rutgers study analyzed — 19 years of results from 47 water providers — exists in New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection records. But older sampling data, especially pre-2018 voluntary testing that some providers conducted before regulations mandated it, may have been purged from active databases. The formal discovery requests and Open Public Records Act requests that would surface this data should be filed as early as possible. This data establishes the contamination timeline: when PFAS was first detected in your service area, how high the concentrations were, which wells were affected, and how long you were exposed.
Well Construction and Aquifer Routing Records. These records, held by the water utilities, determine which wells served which neighborhoods during which time periods. If you lived in Willingboro, the well that served your street and the dates it was active are what connect your residential history to the contaminated water supply. Utility records retention varies — well logs and hydrogeological studies may be archived but not readily accessible without a formal demand.
PFAS Treatment System Records. Willingboro’s treatment system — likely granular activated carbon or ion-exchange technology — was installed after the 2021 detection. The design, installation, and performance records of that system establish when contamination was actually remediated, which marks the endpoint of your exposure for damages calculations. These are ongoing operational records that should be preserved through a litigation hold.
Industrial Discharge Permits and Compliance Reports. NJDEP permitting records for industrial facilities within affected watersheds are the link between specific manufacturer dischargers and the contamination in your water. These records identify who discharged what, where, and when — the foundation of Spill Act and nuisance claims. NJDEP permitting records are generally retained, but facility-level internal monitoring data may be destroyed absent a preservation demand.
Blood Serum PFAS Testing Results. This is the most time-sensitive evidence in your case. Blood serum PFAS testing measures the actual concentration of forever chemicals in your bloodstream. It is the closest thing to a receipt for your exposure. But because PFAS biological half-lives range from 2 to 9 years depending on the compound, every month that passes without testing means your measured levels are declining. If you were exposed to contaminated water for years and stopped drinking it when treatment was installed, your levels are already lower than they were at peak exposure — and they will continue to drop. The blood serum test is the evidence that degrades with every day you wait.
Internal Corporate Documents from PFAS Manufacturers. The punitive damages engine in any PFAS case is the internal corporate record — the documents showing that chemical manufacturers knew about the health and environmental risks of their products before the public or the regulators did. Many such documents have been produced in prior PFAS litigation and multidistrict proceedings. But additional manufacturer-specific discovery may be time-sensitive, and the absence of a document that should exist is itself evidence.
Cancer Registry and Medical Records. If you have been diagnosed with a condition linked to PFAS — kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis — your medical records are the proof of injury. They should be obtained immediately. New Jersey cancer registry data, which the Rutgers researcher is working to link to water-quality data, requires institutional review board and state health department approval to access — but your individual medical records are yours to request and preserve right now.
What we do with this evidence. The preservation letter goes out the day you call. That letter — a formal litigation hold demand — orders the water provider, the industrial dischargers, and any other custodian of relevant records to freeze all documents, data, and physical evidence related to PFAS contamination in your service area. Without that letter, records can be legally destroyed on their retention schedules. With it, destruction becomes spoliation — and a judge can tell a jury to assume the destroyed evidence was as damaging as you say it was.
Blood Serum Testing: Why Every Month Matters
If there is one action you take after reading this page, let it be this: get a blood serum PFAS test.
The test is simple — a blood draw, analyzed by a laboratory that can measure PFAS compounds at the parts-per-billion level. It tells you exactly what is in your blood right now. It is not a diagnosis. It is not a prediction of disease. It is a measurement of your exposure — the closest thing to objective proof that you absorbed these chemicals from your environment.
Why the timing is critical: PFAS compounds leave your body slowly. PFOA has an estimated half-life of approximately 2 to 3 years. PFOS, approximately 3 to 5 years. PFNA, the compound that contaminated Paulsboro, may have a half-life of up to several years. This means that if you stopped drinking contaminated water when your provider installed treatment — say, in 2022 or 2023 — your current blood levels are already lower than they were at peak exposure. And they will continue to decline.
The defense knows this. The chemical companies’ lawyers know that the longer you wait to test, the lower your levels will be, and the harder it will be to prove that your exposure was significant. They are counting on delay. Every month that passes without a blood serum test is a month the defense can argue your exposure “must not have been that high” because your current levels are modest — when the truth is that your levels were high for years and have simply declined since treatment was installed.
The test also serves a second purpose: it establishes a baseline. If you are diagnosed with a PFAS-associated condition in the future — cancer, thyroid disease — having a documented blood serum level from the period closest to your exposure makes the causal connection between your disease and the contaminated water far stronger than if you have no biomarker evidence at all.
Where to get tested: Contact your physician or a laboratory that offers PFAS blood testing. The Rutgers REPEL study, which is actively recruiting participants, may also be a resource. Your attorney can help you identify testing options and ensure the results are preserved in a form that is admissible as evidence.
What Your PFAS Exposure Case Could Be Worth
We are not going to promise you a number. What we will do is give you the honest framework — what these cases have been worth, what drives the value up and down, and what the deflators are.
Medical Monitoring-Only Claims. If you were exposed to elevated PFAS levels in your drinking water over an extended period but have not been diagnosed with a PFAS-associated disease, your claim may be anchored in medical monitoring — the right to periodic medical surveillance (blood testing, cancer screening, thyroid function testing) paid for by the responsible parties. These claims anchor the lower range of case value, which can start around $100,000 per individual claim, depending on the duration and severity of exposure and the cost of the monitoring program.
Diagnosed Condition Claims. If you have been diagnosed with a condition linked to PFAS exposure — kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis — the value of your claim increases substantially. These claims include past and future medical treatment, lost wages and diminished earning capacity, pain and suffering, emotional distress, and the cost of ongoing medical care. With strong exposure-duration evidence and blood serum biomarker results, diagnosed cancer claims can reach into the multi-million-dollar range per individual.
Wrongful Death Claims. If a family member who was exposed to PFAS-contaminated drinking water succumbed to a PFAS-associated cancer, wrongful death claims may apply — including medical expenses incurred prior to death, conscious pain and suffering, and the economic value of the lost life. These claims, when the exposure evidence and the disease-causation evidence are strong, sit at the upper end of the range.
The Paulsboro Benchmark. The Paulsboro-Solvay matter was described as “multi-million-dollar” in public reporting. That provides a comparable-settlement benchmark for New Jersey PFAS contamination cases — not a guarantee of what your case is worth, but evidence of what similar claims have resolved for in this state.
The Primary Value Deflator: Specific Causation. The hardest thing to prove in any PFAS case is that your cancer or your thyroid disease was caused by PFAS in your drinking water — rather than by background exposure from consumer products, dietary factors, genetics, or other environmental sources. This is called specific causation, and it is where the defense fights hardest. Overcoming it requires robust exposure reconstruction (hydrogeological mapping of contamination plumes, well-field service-area records tying your residence to the contaminated water source), blood serum biomonitoring (measuring your actual PFAS body burden), and epidemiological expert testimony (linking your measured exposure to the incidence of your specific disease). Cases with all three are worth dramatically more than cases with only one or two.
Punitive Damages. Where plaintiffs can demonstrate that chemical manufacturers possessed internal knowledge of PFAS health risks earlier than public disclosures and continued production — or suppressed evidence of those risks — punitive damages may be available. New Jersey does not impose a general statutory cap on punitive damages in toxic tort cases. The discovery targets for punitive damages evidence are internal corporate documents: internal safety analyses, communications regarding PFAS persistence and toxicity, and marketing decisions made with knowledge of the risks. These documents, many already produced in prior PFAS litigation, are the punitive damages engine.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. The figures above are frameworks, not promises — they describe what comparable cases have been worth, not what yours will be worth. The only way to know what your specific case is worth is to have it evaluated by an attorney who can assess your exposure history, your medical records, and your blood serum results against the governing law.
The Defense Playbook: How Chemical Companies Fight PFAS Claims
Lupe Peña spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm before he came to our side of the table. He sat in the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims from people exactly like you. He knows the plays because he ran them. Here are the ones the chemical companies and their insurers will run on your PFAS claim — and here is the counter to each.
Play 1: “Everyone has PFAS in their blood.” The defense will argue that because PFAS are ubiquitous — found in consumer products, food packaging, nonstick cookware — your exposure came from everywhere and nowhere, and you cannot single out their client’s discharge as the cause. This is the “background exposure” defense, and it is the single most common argument in PFAS litigation.
The counter: Exposure reconstruction. A hydrogeologist maps the contamination plume from the industrial discharge site through the aquifer to your water provider’s well field. Your residential history ties you to that well field’s service area for the years contamination was present. Your blood serum PFAS profile — the specific compounds and their ratios — can be compared to the profile found in your water supply. When your blood shows the same PFAS fingerprint as your tap water, the “it came from everywhere” argument collapses. The arsenal round from the toxic-exposure medicine pack is clear: the counter to ubiquity is elevated exposure — a contaminated water district, an occupational source — traced through dose reconstruction and source identification.
Play 2: “Your disease has many causes.” If you have kidney cancer, the defense will argue that kidney cancer has many risk factors — smoking, obesity, hypertension, occupational exposures — and you cannot prove PFAS caused yours. This is the alternative-causation defense.
The counter: Differential diagnosis and the weight of the science. A board-certified toxicologist and epidemiologist perform a differential analysis: they examine your medical history, exclude known alternative causes, and determine that PFAS exposure is the most likely causal factor given your specific profile. The IARC Group 1 classification of PFOA and the C8 Science Panel’s “probable link” findings provide the scientific weight that makes the causal inference reasonable. New Jersey’s expert-admissibility standard — analogous to the Daubert framework but grounded in the state’s own evidentiary jurisprudence — requires that causation experts be board-certified and prepared to defend both general causation (PFAS can cause this disease) and specific causation (PFAS caused your disease) against aggressive defense challenges. We retain those experts.
Play 3: “You waited too long.” The defense will argue that the statute of limitations has expired — that you knew or should have known about your exposure years ago and let the deadline pass.
The counter: New Jersey’s discovery rule. The limitations clock in a toxic tort case does not start when you were exposed. It starts when you knew, or reasonably should have known, both that you were injured and that your injury was connected to PFAS exposure. If your water provider did not detect contamination until 2021, and your disease was diagnosed after that — or if you only recently learned that your health condition is associated with PFAS — your clock may have started far more recently than the defense claims. But this rule is not self-executing. It requires a lawyer to analyze your specific timeline and assert the discovery rule properly. And some states impose an outer statute of repose that the discovery rule cannot defeat — which is why you need a New Jersey attorney to confirm the deadline that applies to your facts.
Play 4: “We followed all applicable regulations at the time.” The defense will argue that when the PFAS were discharged, there were no regulations prohibiting it — so the company cannot be held liable for conduct that was legal when it occurred.
The counter: The New Jersey Spill Act’s strict liability and retroactive reach. The Spill Act does not ask whether the discharger followed the rules at the time. It asks whether the discharge happened and whether it caused contamination. If it did, the discharger is liable — for cleanup costs, for natural resource damages, for property damage — regardless of what was legal when the chemicals were released. At the federal level, CERCLA’s strict-liability framework operates on the same principle: liability attaches to the release of a hazardous substance, not to the violation of a specific regulatory standard. The absence of a regulation at the time of discharge is not a defense.
Play 5: The quick settlement offer. If the defense sees that your case is strong but your evidence is not yet fully developed — no blood serum test, no exposure reconstruction, no medical records organized — they may offer a fast, low settlement before you have a lawyer. That check will arrive with a release printed on the back, and signing it will extinguish your right to pursue the full value of your claim. This is not generosity. It is strategy. The defense is betting that you will take a fraction of what your case is worth before you understand what it is worth.
The counter: Do not sign anything, do not give a recorded statement, and do not accept a check from any party or insurer before you have spoken with an attorney. The first call you make is to a lawyer, not to the company’s claims department. Everything you say to the insurer will be transcribed, taken out of context, and used to reduce the value of your claim. Everything your lawyer says on your behalf is protected.
How We Build a PFAS Case From Day One
Here is how a PFAS exposure case is actually built — the chronological walk from the day you call to the day the number is established.
Week One: Preservation. The litigation hold letter goes out to the water provider, to the industrial dischargers identified in your watershed, and to any other custodian of relevant records. That letter freezes the evidence — water sampling data, well logs, discharge permits, treatment system records, internal corporate communications. Without it, those records can be legally destroyed on their retention schedules. With it, destruction becomes spoliation.
Week One: Records Demand. Open Public Records Act requests go to the NJDEP for historical sampling data, discharge permits, and compliance records for facilities in your watershed. The data that the Rutgers study analyzed lives in these records — and pulling it for your specific service area is what builds your contamination timeline.
Week One: Blood Serum Testing. You get tested. The results are preserved. This is the single most time-sensitive piece of individual evidence in your case, and it degrades with every month of delay.
Early Phase: Exposure Reconstruction. We retain a hydrogeologist to map the contamination plume — how PFAS traveled from the industrial discharge site through the aquifer to your water provider’s well field. We identify which wells served your neighborhood during which years. We tie your residential history to the contaminated water supply. This is the foundation of specific causation: proving that the water you drank was the water they contaminated.
Mid Phase: Medical Documentation. Your medical records are obtained and organized. If you have been diagnosed with a PFAS-associated condition, a board-certified toxicologist and epidemiologist are retained to perform a differential diagnosis — examining your medical history, excluding alternative causes, and establishing that PFAS exposure is the most likely causal factor. If you have not been diagnosed but were exposed for an extended period, a medical monitoring plan is developed — specifying the periodic tests, screenings, and surveillance that your increased risk warrants.
Discovery Phase: Corporate Documents. Discovery targets internal corporate documents from PFAS manufacturers — internal safety analyses, communications regarding PFAS persistence and toxicity, marketing decisions. Many of these documents have been produced in prior PFAS litigation and multidistrict proceedings. The ones that show knowledge of health risks predating public disclosure are the punitive damages engine.
Resolution Phase: How the Number Is Built. The number at the end of the case is not a guess. It is built from the full picture: your exposure duration and concentration (from water sampling data and residential history), your individual dose (from blood serum results), your diagnosed conditions and their treatment costs (from medical records and life-care planning), your lost wages and diminished earning capacity (from employment records and a forensic economist), and your pain and suffering and emotional distress (from the documented reality of living with the knowledge that you were poisoned by someone else’s business decision). The defense’s first offer will be a fraction of that number. The strength of your evidence — every piece of which we started building the day you called — is what moves that fraction toward the full measure.
Your First Steps: A Practical Roadmap
1. Get a blood serum PFAS test. This is the most time-sensitive action you can take. Your PFAS levels are declining from the moment treatment was installed in your water system. Every month without a test is a month of evidence lost. Contact your physician or a laboratory that offers PFAS blood testing. Preserve the results.
2. Document your residential history. Write down every address you lived at within the affected water service area, and the dates you lived there. This is what ties you to the contaminated water supply. If you have moved, note when you moved and where you went. Old utility bills, lease agreements, and mortgage records can confirm your timeline.
3. Gather your medical records. If you have been diagnosed with any condition linked to PFAS — kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, pregnancy-induced hypertension — obtain your complete medical records from every treating physician, hospital, and clinic. These records are the proof of your injury. Hospitals and clinics retain records on defined schedules — get them before they are purged.
4. Save every notice you received from your water provider. If your utility sent you a notice about PFAS detection, a public advisory, or a water-quality report — keep it. These notices are part of the official record of what your utility knew and when it told you.
5. Do not sign anything from an insurance company or the water provider. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not accept a check. Do not agree to anything before you have spoken with an attorney. Anything you say to the insurer will be transcribed and used against you. Anything you sign may extinguish your rights permanently.
6. Do not post about your case on social media. The defense monitors social media. A post about feeling fine, a photo of a family vacation, a comment about your health — all of these can be taken out of context and used to minimize your claim. Assume everything you post is being read by someone whose job is to reduce the value of your case.
7. Call us. The consultation is free. The call costs nothing. We will tell you whether you have a case, what it is worth, and what the next steps are — and if we are not the right fit for you, we will tell you that too. You can reach us at 1-888-ATTY-911, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You will speak to a live person, not an answering service.
Who We Are: Ralph Manginello and Lupe Peña
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court, as the managing partner of our firm. Admitted to the Texas bar in November 1998, Ralph holds a J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. Before he was a lawyer, he was a journalist — which means he learned to find the story the evidence tells, not the story the other side wants told. He leads our trial team with the perspective of a competitor who hates losing and the discipline of a writer who knows every word matters. Ralph’s full background is available on our attorneys page.
Lupe Peña is the advantage that most firms cannot offer. Before he joined our side of the table, Lupe spent years inside a national insurance-defense firm — the rooms where adjusters and their software decided how to deny, delay, and devalue claims from people exactly like you. He was trained in claim valuation, IME-doctor selection, surveillance, and delay tactics from the inside. Now he uses that knowledge for injured clients. Lupe is admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, holds a J.D. from South Texas College of Law Houston and a B.B.A. in International Business from Saint Mary’s University, and is fluent in Spanish — he conducts full consultations in Spanish without an interpreter. Lupe’s full background is available on our attorneys page.
We take New Jersey cases. We do not have an office in New Jersey, and we do not claim a New Jersey bar admission. We work with local counsel and appear pro hac vice where required — which is standard practice for a trial firm that takes cases in states where it is not primarily based. What we bring is the toxic tort experience, the insider knowledge of how the defense operates, and the commitment to build your case from the evidence up — starting the day you call.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I sue if PFAS was in my New Jersey drinking water?
Yes — you may have a claim if your water supply tested above New Jersey’s Maximum Contaminant Levels for PFAS and you lived in the affected service area during the period of contamination. Your claim can be brought against the chemical manufacturers who produced and discharged the PFAS, the industrial facilities that released them into your watershed, and potentially the water provider if it delayed detection or treatment. New Jersey’s Spill Act provides a strict-liability cause of action that does not require you to prove negligence — only that the discharge occurred and caused the contamination. Whether your specific facts support a claim is something an attorney can assess in a free consultation.
How long do I have to file a PFAS lawsuit in New Jersey?
New Jersey’s personal injury statute of limitations is generally two years from the date of discovery — meaning two years from when you knew, or reasonably should have known, both that you were injured and that your injury may be connected to PFAS exposure. This is not two years from when you were exposed. If your water provider did not detect contamination until 2021, and you were diagnosed with a PFAS-associated condition after that, your clock may have started more recently than you think. But this rule is not automatic — it must be asserted properly, and some states impose an outer deadline that the discovery rule cannot defeat. You need a lawyer to confirm the deadline for your specific facts. Do not wait to find out.
What health conditions are linked to PFAS exposure?
The C8 Science Panel found a “probable link” between PFOA and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, high cholesterol, thyroid disease, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and ulcerative colitis. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified PFOA as a Group 1 carcinogen (carcinogenic to humans) and PFOS as Group 2B (possibly carcinogenic). Broader scientific literature has linked PFAS to weakened immune response, developmental delays in children, liver damage, and increased cholesterol. If you have been diagnosed with any of these conditions and you lived in a PFAS-affected water service area, your diagnosis may be connected to your exposure.
How do I prove my PFAS exposure came from tap water?
Proof is built from three sources: (1) water sampling data showing PFAS concentrations in your water provider’s supply during the years you lived there, (2) residential history tying your address to the contaminated well field’s service area, and (3) blood serum PFAS testing measuring the actual concentration of forever chemicals in your bloodstream. When your blood serum PFAS profile matches the compounds found in your water supply, the causal connection between your tap water and your exposure is strongly supported. A hydrogeologist can map the contamination plume from the industrial discharge site to your water supply, completing the chain from the polluter to your glass.
What is the New Jersey Spill Act and how does it help my case?
The New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act provides a strict-liability statutory cause of action against any party that discharged a hazardous substance into the waters of the state. It does not require you to prove negligence or fault — only that the discharge occurred and caused the contamination. It is retroactive, reaching discharges that happened decades ago. And it covers cleanup costs, natural resource damages, and property damage. For individual residents, the Spill Act is one path; common-law theories including nuisance, trespass, medical monitoring, and products liability provide additional paths. The Spill Act is one of the most powerful environmental liability statutes in the country, and New Jersey residents have it as a tool that residents of most other states do not.
Should I get my blood tested for PFAS?
Yes — and the sooner the better. Blood serum PFAS testing measures the actual concentration of forever chemicals in your bloodstream. It is the closest thing to objective proof of your individual exposure. But PFAS compounds leave your body slowly — with biological half-lives ranging from 2 to 9 years depending on the compound. Every month you wait without testing, your measured levels decline, making it harder to prove how high your exposure was. If you stopped drinking contaminated water when treatment was installed, your levels are already lower than at peak exposure. The test establishes a baseline that strengthens your case — and if you are diagnosed with a PFAS-associated condition in the future, that baseline becomes critical evidence. Contact your physician or a laboratory that offers PFAS blood testing.
Who pays for the water treatment — the polluters or the ratepayers?
Under New Jersey law, the polluters should pay. The Spill Act makes dischargers strictly liable for cleanup and removal costs. Willingboro has spent close to $10 million on treatment systems and expects up to $20 million more in operational costs — and those costs are currently being passed to ratepayers. The utility’s own leadership has said publicly that residents feel it is unfair that polluters do not bear the cost. Litigation is the mechanism that shifts the cost from the ratepayers back to the companies that caused the contamination. Individual residents can pursue their own claims for exposure damages, medical monitoring, and diagnosed conditions, separate from the utility’s cost-recovery claims.
What if I lived in an affected area but already moved away?
Your claim may still be viable. What matters is whether you lived in the affected service area during the period when contamination was present — not whether you still live there. Document the dates you lived at each address in the affected area, the water provider that served those addresses, and the dates you moved. Your exposure occurred during the years you drank the water, and your right to pursue a claim is based on that exposure, not on your current residence. If you have been diagnosed with a PFAS-associated condition, your blood serum levels may still reflect your past exposure — though they will be lower than if you were still drinking the water. Get tested and contact an attorney to evaluate your claim.
Can I join a class action or do I need an individual lawsuit?
PFAS cases can proceed as individual claims, as mass tort aggregations, or as class actions — depending on the facts, the injuries, and the jurisdiction. Medical monitoring claims are sometimes certified as class actions because the relief (a monitoring program) is similar for all class members. Diagnosed injury claims are typically handled as individual claims because each person’s disease, treatment costs, and exposure profile are unique. The right structure for your case depends on your specific circumstances. An attorney can evaluate whether an individual claim, a mass tort filing, or a class action is the appropriate vehicle for your situation.
How much does it cost to hire a PFAS lawyer?
We work on contingency. That means you pay nothing upfront and nothing out of pocket. Our fee is 33.33% of the recovery before trial and 40% if the case goes to trial. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free — you can call us at 1-888-ATTY-911, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and speak to a live person. We will tell you whether you have a case, what it may be worth, and what the next steps are. If we are not the right fit, we will tell you that too.
What to Do Right Now
If you have read this far, you already know more about your situation than most people ever will. You know that the chemicals in your water are real, that the health risks are established, that the law gives you tools to hold the polluters accountable, and that the evidence you can preserve today is the evidence that decides your case.
Here is what we ask you to do:
Get the blood test. Write down your residential history. Gather your medical records. Save every notice from your water provider. Do not sign anything. Do not give a recorded statement. Do not post about this on social media.
And then call us. The consultation is free. The call costs nothing. We work on contingency — no fee unless we win your case. Hablamos Español. You will speak to a live person, not an answering service, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. Or contact us through our website. The evidence clock is already running. The day you call is the day it starts working for you instead of against you.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes. This page is legal information, not legal advice. Contacting the firm is free and confidential.
