The Killer Pharmaceutical Plant: The Napp Chemical Mixing Environmental Disaster in Lodi, NJ from 1995 to Present  

For my video story I wanted to show as much of my town as possible through its history, demographics, conditions, and events. The main focus will be mainly on Napp Technologies in Lodi, NJ and its mismanagement and literal contamination of my home town. I will be showing the progress of the town in terms of industrial factories to a new heavily retail dominated town.

Introduction

Smoke, sirens, emergency responders, ambulances, and panic were flooding all around. People woke up and looked outside their windows to see their entire neighborhood is in nothing but disarray and chaos. The atmosphere is almost paralyzing. No more than one-hundred yards down the street there is a column of poison being shot into the sky. Men barked commands from the street. Police started to evacuate people from their homes. Pointed in the opposite direction from the castle of smoke the evacuated citizens walk, still able to smell things humans should never have to smell. These people didn’t know it, but for a long time right under their noses, this disaster was a time-bomb. There were 5 people that were killed during this tragedy, with hundreds being affected from the airborne chemical smoke feeling symptoms days, weeks, and months after. It took 23 years to fully redevelop the land on which this event occurred.

This event was the site of none other than the Napp Technologies explosion that happened in Lodi, NJ on April 21st, 1995. The explosion and aftermath of it was so impactful that it was even credited with the creation of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board. [i] However, the town wasn’t always this way.  Lodi, NJ had a heavily industrial focus for much of its history. For a very long time it was nothing but factories, a few streets and some lower income housing. After a while, there were a lot more businesses coming into the town, such as supermarkets, restaurants, clothing stores, you name it. However, these small additions were nothing compared to the large chemical factories littered all over the town, sometimes literal feet from their homes. One of these factories was Napp Technologies. Napp arrived in Lodi somewhere in the early to mid-twentieth century, the exact date is unclear. Its main commercial purpose was the manufacturing of pharmaceutical products, but it also had the capability of large-scale chemical mixing for other companies through independent contracts. Napp had an extremely bad habit of safety violations with their chemical processes and the lack of training their own fire brigade as well as the regular plant workers received.[ii] Their largest discretion was the fact they did not intend to let any outside entity know of any problems or concerns within their plant. This will come into play later on.

Some questions that I was really interested in answering from this situation was: How did the explosion happen? What type of people were affected by this disaster the most? Did the citizens of Lodi or the surrounding area do anything to make the cleanup happen? Mainly what I am going to argue is that the people of Lodi, NJ while living next to the chemical plant Napp Technologies, were unjustly affected before and after the explosion of the plant because of the company’s lack of care for the local environment or the people who lived near the plant because the locals were lower income and didn’t have enough political power or resources to make the plant leave.

 To start, I will go over the history of Lodi, NJ in terms of its industrial upbringing, community, and the explosion in the town itself. Secondly, I am going to talk about the documented bad track record and findings before and after the disaster. Third, I will explain what the local population had to go through during the cleanup years as well as their push to finally get rid of Napp. Fourth, go over the cleanup efforts and how much has changed in the exact area of where the disaster happened and how it got to its present point.

Background

            The borough of Lodi was established in 1894 out of what was previously known as Lodi Township. During its official establishment and very early history, it would become home to many different groups of people. However, a very large majority of the people that would settle into the town would be industrial laborers. During the post WWII era, the town was an extremely popular location for different industrial plants, especially along the Saddle River. A Lodi resident, Felix Sciarra, said in his book Lodi as I remember it, “When the war ended and things were getting back to normal, the economy began to prosper, buildings started to boom and jobs became plentiful.” With this mindset, it could be assumed that during the time of industry and progress in Lodi everything might have been seen pretty well from an outside perspective. In Lodi in Review 1956-57 by Lawrence C. Toscano, he even boasts that “This great industry had been directly responsible for our rapid growth and the salvation and prosperity of all the people in the Borough.” Providing that he believed that Lodi’s success was solely resting on the backs of these large industrial powerhouses. [iii]  Looking at specifics, the main two types of plants in the town were chemical manufacturing and fabric dyeing. However, in terms of chemical plants and their safety record for the town, in the years of 1969-1973, there was three major accidents by three different chemical plants that killed eight people all together in Lodi. [iv] Despite all of the events that put the town into a negative light, most of the people of Lodi thought of themselves as very lucky to work, even if it was just an industrial factory job. One of these industrial plants happened to be that of United Piece Dye Works. This dyeing facility was one of the largest in the United States, and it had employed more than 3,000 people, just in the town of Lodi. Throwing away the façade for a second, it should be known that even if people were happy that they had secured job positions in these factories, the conditions that they have had to work in would be literally intolerable if done today.[v] Despite the might of United Piece Dye Works, time would eventually eat away at its success and eventually be reutilized as other industries. Enter Napp Technologies, a chemical mixing and pharmaceutical plant that used to be the same building of United Piece Dye Works. Napp, arrived in Lodi somewhere between the early to middle 20^th century, and not too much is known about the company during its early period of existence in Lodi. One thing about Napp that became very clear to the residents of Lodi is that it turned into a company that contained many secrets from them. Napp was definitely not the squeaky-clean company that many today try to be, this company had somewhat of a bad track record. They were known to have bad standards of practice that were anywhere but adequate for the jobs that they were contracted to do. In an article describing the problems with Napp’s work process, they listed that “an inadequate process hazards analysis that resulted in not taking appropriate preventative actions; inadequate standard operating procedures and training.”[vi] Stating that this was something that was common and was not a practice that just happened to change overnight. Napp Technologies had a genuine problem, not only in their lower-level employees doing the heavy work, but also the higher management for letting their company get to that level of incompetence.

The Explosion

            On April 21^st, 1995, the Napp plant was doing a fairly routine chemical mixing operation under a contract from Technic Incorporated. These types of outside blending contracts were usually the result from when a company does not have the appropriate facilities or equipment to do the blending on their own. Napp was trying to produce ACR 9031, which is a gold precipitating agent that comprised of 66% sodium hydrosulfite, 22% aluminum powder, and 11% potassium carbonate. The blender that was in use for the mixing was a Patterson-Kelley Dry Solids Blender, and in the after action reports, this was not the type of equipment that was actually intended for these types of blending operations. During a long chain of events starting at Napp from April 19^th at 10:30pm (when the actual blending operation for the ACR 9031 is going to begin), up till 7am on the 21^st (right before the explosion took place) there was many different signs of incompetency and unfamiliarity with standard operating procedures from the Napp employees and management. Some of the signs that something had started to go wrong during the mixing process was including: the odor that was similar to that of rotten eggs; The mixing blender was actually bubbling on the surface; And the fact that they had seen water in the feed tank, line, and filter. (Note: Water in this blending mixture will react extremely violently if it were to come into contact)[vii]

            What starts to become very clear with all of these telltale signs of a disaster waiting to happen is that of the actions of Napp’s higher up leadership. As stated before, there was genuine signs of the blending process going wrong and every person at the plant knew that things were not going as they had planned it. From the EPA/OSHA report directly, it says that “At approximately 6:15 a.m. the plant was evacuated, through verbal instructions; no audible alarms were ever activated at the facility.” Meaning that more than likely not a single person outside of the Napp Technologies organization knew that people were being literally evacuated, from a possibly dangerous situation leaving the surrounding community in the dark.[viii] Once all of the Napp employees were evacuated from the facility, the third shift supervisor made a call out to the Vice President for Regulatory Affairs for Napp Technologies. Once on the phone with the VPRA, he had instructed the shift supervisor to tell his people to go back into the plant as soon as possible. Despite some pushback from the supervisor, and him voicing some very real concerns to the VPRA, he finally accepted the plan and moved into tell his evacuated personnel that they have to go back in to empty the mixture.

            During the process of trying to empty the blender, there was a loud hissing sound that could be heard, seconds later, the blender violently exploded. The explosion would rip a ginormous hole through the center of the plant and would start a large and roaring chemical fire. Since the plant was surrounded by a large residential area, the town had to resort to evacuating a large portion of the civilians due to the uncertainty of chemical poisoning. With the Lodi Fire Department and support from other local unit fire departments, after hours of constant fighting they eventually contained the chemical fire. However, while they were fighting the fire, all the runoff water was going everywhere around the area mainly into the adjacent Saddle River. The river would be shown as having a bright green color to it, after the chemical fluorescein, that was stored at Napp, began to spill killing fish for 2 miles downstream. In the EAP/OSHA report, in regards to the community “The Napp facility was located in a residential area, with homes and other businesses nearby. Napp did not provide any warning to local community of an on-going chemical emergency.” Proving that they intended to sweep everything under the rug until their own people can fix the problems they were experiencing, of course until they ruined everything.[ix]

The Community Strikes Back

            Despite Napp Technologies wanting to try and stay in the town of Lodi after the incident, the civilian population heavily advocated for Napp to leave for good, and so did the Lodi government. With a large history of the many other industrial plants that caused headaches and trauma for the many residents, the explosion at Napp can be considered the straw that broke the camel’s back. When even the New York Times is talking about how bad a company it was, saying, “The blast at Napp Technologies, which had a history of environmental violations and workplace accidents, was being described as an industrial accident” You most definitely know that the people that have been putting up with it the most will eventually put their foot down and say it enough is enough.[x] Looking at the people more directly, it can be seen that a majority of people that were living around Napp were actually more often than not, lower income. There were two trailer parks within a .25-mile radius from Napp’s location and there was low-income housing actually only 200 yards north east of the plant. There can be a very real point made that the reason Napp was able to get away with all of the accidents, spills, and workplace problems was because the surrounding people genuinely could not have a real voice to share their struggles living so close. It can also be inferred that these people were just trying to survive in it of itself and didn’t have any time or means to report these incidents. The fact that a chemical plant had to literally explode and kill people for it to become known how many shady business practices were being done at Napp is an actual disgrace. You would maybe think that a few months after the explosion, it would have been expected that Napp would actually be fined a large sum of money due to the fact that many people’s lives were affected, with some people even losing their lives, right? Wrong. Napp only ended up getting fined $127,000 by OSHA saying that due to a loophole in rules it was limited to only that amount. With other fatal chemical accident fines going up to as much as $11.5 before the accident, it could be seen that Napp was let off easy. In Lodi, the town fined them $70,000 for “willful failure” because Napp didn’t train their fire response personnel properly. Why didn’t Lodi fine them for not letting literally ANYONE OUTSIDE of Napp know about the possible danger that could be put upon the community due to a chemical emergency? Why so little punishment or justice for people’s lives and their homes with the community being polluted and feeling helpless?[xi] With such a cheap get out of jail free card given to these greedy and selfish organizations, it is easy to see why the community was glad to finally get rid of them when they had the chance.

Cleanup

            With the mess that Napp made and their eagerness to try and keep the land that they polluted greatly, it was a blessing to finally get rid of them so the land could be cleaned and built back up to something better. However, there was some problems that hindered new development on the old Napp land. All of the soil that had been contaminated after the explosion ended up being so saturated with chemicals that development on the site even a decade afterwards could have meant that there was an extremely high risk that people would be affected by the chemicals.

Not only that, but Napp Technologies was under another company, called Purdue Pharma LP. The site was still technically owned by Purdue and despite the fact the Napp was no longer there, Purdue was stalling the cleanup effort for unknown to the public reasons. Even when the Department of Environmental Protection were finally given the OK to continue the cleanup, it still took a very long time for the entire area to be redeveloped. [xii]

            To put this into perspective, my parents and I used to go to this restaurant called Vincenzo’s. It was right next to the old Napp plant and for many years when my family went there, I could see these ominous looking empty lots and I heard from friends at school about the rumors of something that happened there many years ago, something that happened before I was even born. From these empty dirt lots, fenced off from our outside world, I always thought about what was the reasoning for why it happened and how were so many people effected? I don’t know if I would have continued to eat at that restaurant these days, knowing of what was on that land so close by, but to finally figure out that it had really happened have me just a tiny bit of closure.

Lodi Today

             Lodi, NJ, now is a town that looks nothing like it once did. The heavy industrial roots are slowly dying in the town as more commercially focused businesses are arriving. With brands such as ShopRite, LA Fitness, and CVS all going onto the old Napp site alone, it really shows the change of what the people of Lodi want. It could be seen as no more industrial plants poisoning the regular civilians just trying to live their lives. It could also be that of the community and the town of Lodi itself knowing that the only way to have the town really start to progress and shine is to focus on what the people of the borough need and want, not just big companies with their industrial needs and corporate greed.  Today, the town is home to many diverse backgrounds, both in profession and in ethnicity. Looking like a vibrant and alive town with so many businesses both large and local only, it seems like such a long time ago when it had happened. As Kristie Cattafi from NorthJersey.com puts it “There are no remnants or reminders of the explosion at Napp Technologies, which killed five employees and injured dozens of others. The horrific scene lives now only in the memories of the first responders and residents who experienced it.” Really putting into place that despite the fact that we really do remember what had happened before as a town, Lodi has really moved on.[xiii]

Conclusion

            Smoke, sirens, emergency responders, ambulances, and panic were flooding all around. The plant employees are looking around in horror and confusion. Some of them have no idea what had gone wrong, with some of the people that went back inside the plant to never come back alive. The workers don’t know what exactly to do, as they never anticipated this type of chemical reaction to occur. They were just trying to follow the higher ups instructions; this was just supposed to be a routine blending operation. They very much could have been thinking to themselves “How did it end up like this?”

            To put everything together, the Borough of Lodi had a very rich and interesting industrial past. With many of its plants being aspects of pride for the largely working-class community shortly after World War II. It soon devolved into a place that was well known for its disasters and chemical toxicity. While the community started to want change, these plants, mainly Napp Technologies continued to undermine what was best for the community by cutting corners and purposely leaving the citizens of Lodi out to dry with its constant safety hazards and violations. Only the pushback from the entire town of Lodi, both the citizens and the borough’s government, did they force out the Napp Technologies plant after derailing the lives of so many people. Even after the plant was gone, they had still to contend with looking at nothing but a chemically contaminated dirt lot surrounded by fences for a whole 23 years until they could get the area back.

            In order for companies or organizations like this to not be able to take advantage of common people, we all must know that a voice means something regardless of what medium is used to get it out. People no longer have to march up and down a street to protest what they want, all people need to do is to make their cause known. Whether it be spam posting your cause online forums, posting videos to YouTube, making thousands of flyers and giving them out anywhere, if people know that their time and energy will be for something they are willing to fight for it at least has a chance of getting out. Just because a towns history had so much of a specific industry and has been there for so long, it doesn’t mean that they can stay there forever. Complacency is a silent killer, if people remain complacent in their actions and continue to tolerate the intolerable, this will not be the only story of injustice to hear.

[1] Salant, Jonathan D, “Chemical Safety Board Vital to N.J. Gets New Life after Being Ignored by Trump.” nj.com, May 5, 2021. https://www.nj.com/politics/2021/05/chemical-safety-board-vital-to-nj-gets-new-life-after-being-ignored-by-trump.html.

[1] “Napp Technologies, Inc., Lodi, New Jersey – Discount PDH,” EPA/OSHA Joint Chemical Accident Investigation Report, (Government Report, EPA/OSHA, October 1997), Page iii. https://www.discountpdh.com/wp-content/themes/discountpdh/pdf-course/what-caused-explosion-fire-napp-technology-in-new-jersey.pdf.

[2] Lawrence C. Toscano, Lodi in Review 1956-1957 (Lodi, NJ: Lawrence C. Toscano (Self Published), 1957), Page 47.

[3] Felix Sciarra, Lodi as I Remember It (Lodi, NJ: Felix Sciarra (Self Published), 1995), Page vii.

[4] Zimmer, David M, “A Colorful Past At the Forefront of American Textile Finishing Were Innovative Dye Works in Lodi Known for an Early Success in the American Labor Movement” 201 Magazine 22, no.9 (2025): 28.

[5] “Deadly Explosion Caused by Poor Safety Program: 1997-12-01: AHC…,” Clinician.com, December 1, 1997, https://www.clinician.com/articles/35574-deadly-explosion-caused-by-poor-safety-program.

[6] “Napp Technologies, Inc., Lodi, New Jersey – Discount PDH,” EPA/OSHA Joint Chemical Accident Investigation Report, (Government Report, EPA/OSHA, October 1997), Page 13,15. https://www.discountpdh.com/wp-content/themes/discountpdh/pdf-course/what-caused-explosion-fire-napp-technology-in-new-jersey.pdf.

[7] “Napp Technologies, Inc., Lodi, New Jersey – Discount PDH,” EPA/OSHA Joint Chemical Accident Investigation Report, (Government Report, EPA/OSHA, October 1997), Page 16. https://www.discountpdh.com/wp-content/themes/discountpdh/pdf-course/what-caused-explosion-fire-napp-technology-in-new-jersey.pdf.

[8] “Napp Technologies, Inc., Lodi, New Jersey – Discount PDH,” EPA/OSHA Joint Chemical Accident Investigation Report, (Government Report, EPA/OSHA, October 1997), Page 21. https://www.discountpdh.com/wp-content/themes/discountpdh/pdf-course/what-caused-explosion-fire-napp-technology-in-new-jersey.pdf.

[9] Robert Hanley, “Chemical Plant Explosion Kills 4 in New Jersey Town,” The New York Times Front Page (New York, NY), April. 22, 1995.

[10]Robert Hanley, “Osha, Citing Limits, Imposes $127,000 Fine in Lodi Blast,” The New York Times Section B Page 7 (New York, NY), October. 19, 1995.

[11] Myles Ma, “Lodi Chemical Plant Cleanup Nears End, 20 Years after Explosion, Report Says,” nj.com, April 21, 2015, https://www.nj.com/bergen/2015/04/lodi_chemical_plant_cleanup_nears_end_20_years_aft.html.

[12] Kristie Cattafi, “Napp Technologies Hazmat Disaster Left Scars on Lodi for Years,” northjersey.com, January 13, 2023, https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/2023/01/12/napp-technologies-lodi-nj-hazmat-chemical-disaster/69778717007/.

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