Tuesday, September 23rd, 2003 — In New Jersey, and elsewhere to a lesser extent, there has been a lot of talk recently about natural resource damages (NRD) and their potential impact on landowners and the insurers who carry their environmental and pollution policies. Although billions of dollars are at stake, the issue has not appeared on most insurers’ radar screens. Now would be a good time to start boning up on the subject.
A number of federal and state regulators, as well as Native American tribes, are authorized, as public trustees, to bring actions for damages to natural resources caused by releases of hazardous and toxic substances to the environment.