Scrap Metal Co. Settles for $1.6M after Hazwaste Charges
EPA Region 5 and the U.S. Department of Justice announced a $1,609,732 settlement with Livingston and Co. Inc., a scrap metal business responsible for contributing hazardous waste to the United Scrap Lead Superfund site near Troy, Ohio. As part of the settlement, Livingston also will pay $290,268 to a larger "respondent group" of other responsible parties that performed cleanup work at the site. The consent decree was entered with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in Dayton. According to EPA, government agencies and the respondent group have spent nearly $19 million to address the site.
United Scrap Lead operated from 1948 to 1980 at a 25-acre site about one mile south of Troy in Concord Township, Miami County. The business reclaimed materials from automotive batteries but left lead and battery acid in an eight-acre disposal area on the property. Livingston and Co. sent scrap batteries to the United Scrap Lead site, which in 1984 was added to the Superfund National Priorities List. EPA's federal and Ohio regional office supervised a series of cleanup activities at the site from 1985 to 1999, with the most extensive work beginning in 1997. In total, about 62,000 cubic yards of battery casing debris was excavated, treated, and shipped off-site for proper disposal. About 11,500 cubic yards of soil were excavated, treated, and left at the site. About 3,000 cubic yards of the excavated soils did not require chemical or stabilization treatment and were used as clean backfill on the site.
EPA has conducted two required five-year reviews of site conditions since 1999. These reviews confirmed that the cleanup currently protects residents near the site. The agency is in the process of establishing institutional controls to limit future uses of the property in the event it is sold or redeveloped. The agency plans to work with a receiver newly appointed by the court to finalize these controls and market the property to a new owner.