PHILADELPHIA (Legal Newsline) - A settlement announced Monday by the Environmental Protection Agency requires three companies to pay about $29.8 million in cleanup costs for a Superfund site.
Three companies - Exxon Mobil, Vertellus Specialties, and CBS Corp. - will do cleanup work and pay the EPA and the state of West Virginia $11 million for past cleanup costs at the Big John's Salvage-Hoult Road Superfund Site in Fairmont, W. Va.
The estimated cost of the cleanup is $17.8 million. There is also an estimated $1 million to be paid for all future costs associated with overseeing the cleanup.
The area was designated a Superfund site in 2000, making it eligible for federal cleanup funds. The site was contaminated with hazardous wastes from prior decades of industrial use.
Landowners, waste generators and waste transporters that are responsible for contamination of a Superfund site must either clean up the site or reimburse the government or other parties for cleanup activities.
According to the EPA, cleanup actions include constructing an impermeable cap to contain contaminated soil and enhancing an existing ground water containment system to help prevent contaminants from migrating. About 5,500 cubic yards of tar wastes coating a one-acre area along the bottom of the Monongahela River must also be removed and sent to a certified disposal facility, said the EPA.
The site was owned by predecessors of the three companies from 1932-73.