St. Louis, MO, July 14--Solutia says that, at least for now, it will continue a costly environmental cleanup in Anniston, Alabama, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The cleanup will go on despite an order on June 30 by U.S. District Judge U.W. Clemon that relieves Solutia of the obligation, which came under a consent decree in 2003 with the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA's actions in trying to secure a separate, but related, cleanup repudiate its deal with Solutia, Clemon wrote.
Yet, Solutia said it would rather continue its work in Anniston while the parties wrangle.
"We've spent too much money and made too much progress as it is," said Glynn Young, a Monsanto employee who spoke on behalf of Solutia.
The two companies, which formerly were related, are sharing the cost of the cleanup -- approximately $90 million so far, he said. Solutia is based in Town and Country, while Monsanto has its headquarters in Creve Coeur.
Halting work to remove hazardous polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from the soil and groundwater in Anniston "is about the last thing in the world we need and the last thing in the world the community needs," Young said.
The old industrial town, with many poor residents, has suffered from decades of environmental damage and related health issues.
PCBs were produced in Anniston by an earlier incarnation of Monsanto Co. more than 30 years ago; chemical maker Solutia was spun out of that company in 1997.
In the 2003 consent decree, Solutia agreed to clean up residential lots and some public land contaminated with PCBs, and to study other potentially affected areas.
But in doing that work, Solutia found that some PCB contamination was mixed with lead in a way that indicates the chemicals came from area foundries -- and not from the former Monsanto plant. The EPA concurred. So, Solutia in 2003 sued several of the foundries to compel them to share the cleanup costs. The case is continuing.
Solutia has spent more than $20 million cleaning areas that contained PCBs as well as lead from other companies, said Craig Branchfield, Anniston PCB project manager for Solutia and Monsanto. And more work remains.
The EPA, too, has been removing lead from Anniston soil. According to a court filing in May, the agency had sampled 1,782 residential properties; found 353 with levels high enough to require cleanup; and completed work on 133 of them at a cost of $11 million.
The EPA pursued companies that ran local foundries to take over the remediation. In November, 11 of them agreed to reimburse approximately 30 percent of EPA's past costs and to assume future work estimated at more than $50 million. On properties where both PCBs and lead are present, they will remove both. The deal is subject to a public comment period and federal court approval, but could go into effect later this year.
In exchange, EPA said it will protect the foundries from Solutia's cost-sharing lawsuit. The government's claim against them takes precedence over Solutia's, EPA argued in court documents.
Yet Clemon -- responding to requests filed by Solutia -- found that the EPA's actions violate the consent decree governing Solutia's PCB cleanup. Because negotiations between the agency and the company have reached an impasse, Clemon ruled that Solutia's cleanup obligations are suspended.
EPA lawyer Richard Leahy said Friday that his agency is reviewing Clemon's ruling and figuring out its next steps. "We want the cleanup as quickly as possible," he said.
Solutia also is weighing its options, Young said. It could halt all or part of its PCB remediation, continue to pursue the foundries and EPA in court, or some combination.
"We understand that we have a considerable portion of the responsibility," he said. But, he added, "You want the people who put the junk there to clean it up. It's a question of fairness."
