The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reached a $17 million settlement with dozens of companies that dumped hazardous waste at a facility near Los Angeles that was later designated a Superfund site. The EPA’s Pacific Southwest Region settled with 275 companies that sent as much as 110,000 gallons of liquid hazardous waste to Operating Industries Inc., a dump located in Monterey Park, between 1948 and 1984.
The landfill was identified an environmental problem and named a Superfund site in 1986. Both the owner of the site and as many as 1,100 companies have been held responsible for the contamination and have contributed more than $600 million to the dump’s cleanup.
Source: Bloomberg