A cleanup contractor specializing in treating contaminated soil at hazardous waste sites is facing multiple class-action lawsuits from its investors for allegedly overstating the value of a cleanup contract at a New Jersey Superfund site.
Already, plaintiffs' attorneys have filed four separate suits against Bennett Environmental Inc., a Canadian company that treats contaminated soil by heating it to high temperatures.
EPA is close to finalizing an agreement with Massachusetts that relies on little-used Superfund authority allowing states to "enhance" some cleanup plans that will allow the state to include navigational dredging as part of EPA's plans to dredge contaminated sediments from portions of New Bedford harbor.
Invoking the authority will allow Massachusetts to streamline permitting requirements for disposal of sediment from the two projects, reduce disposal costs, coordinate monitoring and increase coordination between the two dredging projects, EPA says.
A Virgin Islands resident is filing an unusual challenge to a natural resource damages (NRD) settlement plan stemming from groundwater contamination, charging that the territory's plans to use settlement funds to purchase beachfront property violates provisions in Superfund law requiring funds be spent only on "equivalent" resources.
Top Interior Department (DOI) officials are raising concerns about EPA efforts to force a Canadian company to clean up contamination in a Washington state lake because of fears DOI's Bureau of Reclamation, which operates a nearby dam, could face Superfund liability at the lake as well as hundreds of other dams it operates, government sources say.
DOI's concerns could put further pressure on EPA to retreat from its efforts to hold Canadian mining giant Teck Cominco liable under CERCLA for mining releases that originated in Canada but eventually settled in Lake Roosevelt.
EPA may adopt Region III guidelines for permitting the bulk of remaining unregulated Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) facilities, including a host of munitions disposal sites, to help meet the agency's ambitious goal of preventing releases at 95 percent of hazardous waste facilities by 2008, according to an Office of Solid Waste (OSW) official and agency documents.
EPA will study the environmental risks posed by its plan to exempt over one million tons of hazardous waste from regulation, after the waste treatment industry and environmentalists criticized the agency's failure to study those risks when developing the proposal, according to an Office of Solid Waste (OSW) official.
The first settlement between the U.S. government and a utility over the government's failure to assume control over commercial nuclear waste by a statutorily mandated deadline is likely to increase pressure on the federal government to open the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, NV, by 2010, industry sources say.
Iowa legislators are expected to revive their proposal that sharply curbs states' authority to issue clean air standards for animal feedlots and other pollution sources EPA does not already regulate.
Earlier this year, the Republican-controlled Iowa legislature passed a bill that would have set specific standards for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) from which state regulators could not deviate, but Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) vetoed the legislation amid a contentious and largely partisan debate.
EPA officials may bar the public from commenting on a controversial agreement temporarily exempting concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) from enforcement, despite a commitment to a key Democratic senator last year that the agency would seek public comment on a draft version of the agreement before it was finalized.
One EPA source would not discuss specific plans on the agreement, but said the agency has made no final decisions on its release. "We're still considering how to proceed with this," the source says.
EPA will analyze the environmental risks posed by its plan to exempt over one million tons of hazardous waste from regulation, after the waste treatment industry and environmentalists criticized the agency's failure to study those risks when developing the proposal, according to an Office of Solid Waste (OSW) official.