U.S. government announces settlement over Superfund site
SAUGET, IL - Twenty-one companies have agreed collectively to pay $2.6 million to help defray the cost of cleaning up a long-closed landfill, the federal government announced Wednesday.
Under terms of the settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Justice Department, the companies - including Dow Chemical Co., Procter & Gamble Co., BASF Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. - will reimburse the government for the costs of the cleanup.
More than 3,700 drums and 24,000 tons of contaminated soil and debris from the former landfill near the Mississippi River were removed after the EPA declared it a Superfund site. Cleanup of the 25-acre area, known as Site Q, was completed in April 2000.
The site, which has not been used as a landfill since the 1970s, was contaminated with drums and soil containing arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury and PCBs, the EPA said in a statement.
"But we won't be finished in Metro East until we've addressed the many remaining contaminated sites," said Mary Gade, a regional EPA administrator.
ON THE NET
Environmental Protection Agency, http://www.epa.gov
Justice Department, http://www.usdoj.gov
