JERSEY CITY - Mayor Steve Fulop today accused PPG Industries, the company responsible for cleaning up about 20 acres of chromium-contaminated land along Garfield Avenue, of planning to leave the site in a condition unusable to future development, and he's kicking them out of the city as punishment.

Fulop said PPG intends to leave the lot as a massive gravel pit. He said he is going to bar them from the property effective Feb. 9 as he seeks help from a judge. PPG, meanwhile, has vowed to seek legal action of its own to keep from being booted from the site.

"PPG's belief is that the bare minimum is acceptable," he said, adding that PPG is interested only in "handing back to the city essentially a huge piece of property that is unusable."

Fulop spoke today at a press conference with the chromium site in the background, flanked by more than a dozen community members and city officials who shivered as they waited to blast PPG. The wind chill temperature made it feel like 10 degrees.

"There's a new sheriff in town," City Councilwoman-at-large Joyce Watterman said, referring to Fulop, who was elected mayor in 2013. "PPG, we're not going to rest ... We're ready to battle."

PPG owned and operated a chromium chemical production plant on the Garfield Avenue site from 1954 until it was shut down in 1963, and the company has been tasked with cleaning up the hazardous waste that had been contaminating the area's soil since the plant opened in 1920.

In 2009, PPG agreed to remediate the soil and sources of chromium contamination on the site, and to pay Jersey City $1 million over five years.

Fulop said that decision forces PPG to leave the site in a condition friendly to future development. He said he intends to go before a judge to force PPG to accede to the city's demands.

PPG officials were on site when Fulop arrived for today's press conference. They declined to comment, referring all questions to PPG spokesman Mark Silvey. In an email, Silvey said the city's decision to bar PPG from the property will "seriously impair" the cleanup process.

"PPG remains fully committed to completing its previously agreed upon remedial obligations in a manner that will permit redevelopment," he said. "PPG plans to take legal action for continued access to the work site in order to fulfill its commitments."

PPG has removed and safely disposed of more than 790,000 tons, or 80 percent, of contaminated soil and debris in the area, according to Silvey.

The Jersey City Redevelopment Agency, which owns the Garfield Avenue site, envisions it as part of a 111-acre development called Canal Crossing. Corporation Counsel Jeremy Farrell said today that PPG wants to leave the site with one master drainage system that would not allow for the new street grid envisioned by the JCRA's plan.

Adding streets, PPG said, would be too costly, according to Farrell.

"They're going to leave it undevelopable," said JCRA chief David Donnelly, a former councilman. "The expense would be so onerous that nobody will ever want to come here."

PPG's net sales in 2014 were $15.4 billion.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.