U.S. Water News Online
RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- The Pyrite Canyon Group will pay $1.65 million for cleanup of a Superfund site in northwest Riverside County, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.
The money for past cleanup costs will be used to reimburse Superfund and for cleanup at other sites across the country.
A recent settlement between the company and the EPA clears the way for dismissal of litigation over whether the EPA could recover money from Pyrite for cleanup of the now-closed Stringfellow acid pits in Glen Avon. The litigation had been pending for two decades.
After paying the money, Pyrite will have contributed about $80 million overall to California's treatment efforts at the site. The state, now responsible for the site, resolved its litigation with Pyrite two years ago.
Between 1956 and 1972, 35 million gallons of industrial wastes such as pesticides, heavy metals and solvents were dumped at the acid pits, which at the time was a liquid industrial waste disposal site.
The toxins eventually contaminated the groundwater. Since the early 1980s, state and federal governments and polluters have spent more than $100 million on cleanup efforts.
Stringfellow was designated a Superfund site, allowing the government and ``any other person'' who cleans up a hazardous waste site to recover costs from anyone legally liable for the environmental problem.
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