ATLANTA (Legal Newsline) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced a settlement with 173 parties to clean areas around the Ward Transformer Superfund site in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The EPA said $5.5 million will be spent by the settling parties to perform the cleanup of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the area. The site, a former transformer manufacturing, repair, sales and reconditioning facility, received products with PCBs used as an insulating and cooling mechanism. While repairing these products, the facility would regularly spill fluids with PCBs in the land.
“This legal agreement ensures that the remaining PCB contamination surrounding the Ward Transformer site in Raleigh will be cleaned up by potentially responsible parties,” said Anne Heard, EPA's acting regional administrator for the Southeast. “EPA welcomes the path forward toward restoring the water bodies surrounding the site so that future generations may enjoy them.”
Under the settlement, one settling party -- Carr & Duff Inc. -- will also pay a $40,000 civil penalty due to allegations it failed to comply with a 2011 unilateral administrative order related to the cleanup.
The settlement will go before public comment for 30 days. It was posted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.