Republic Services — the waste hauler whose subsidiary, Bridgeton Landfill, owns the radioactive West Lake Landfill Superfund site — may have signaled its strategy for coping with the $205 million cleanup that the Environmental Protection Agency ordered for the site in late September: lawsuits fought on multiple fronts, to help spread out costs.
Building on a lawsuit filed last week against the historic chemical manufacturer and ex-uranium processor, Mallinckrodt, the landfill’s owners filed an amended suit Thursday in U.S. District Court that attempts to enlist yet another entity to bear liability at the site, and may hint at even more legal battles to come.
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EverZinc, a Belgian producer of zinc chemicals, joins Mallinckrodt as a defendant in the latest version of the lawsuit. The company is asked to pay for the alleged role of its predecessor, African Metals Corp., in the eventual contamination of the site, with Republic seeking recovery of costs that it “has incurred and will continue to incur,†associated with West Lake.
In 1944, African Metals Corp. provided uranium ore and ore concentrates that were used as part of the Manhattan Project, according to the lawsuit. It states that the company underwent a series of name changes over the decades, and today is a part of EverZinc.
“They also retained ownership, for a period of time, of Manhattan Project residues from uranium refining activities,†said Richard Callow, a spokesman for Bridgeton Landfill. “Some of those residues, which were initially stored at the (ºüÀêÊÓƵ Airport Site) and later at Latty Avenue, led to the contamination of West Lake Landfill. We believe that EverZinc, like Mallinckrodt, should have a seat at the table.â€
EverZinc declined to comment and said it was not aware of the lawsuit when contacted by the Post-Dispatch.
At present, the $205 million remediation plan chosen by the EPA is set to be divided among Republic Services and two other groups deemed liable at the site: the U.S. Department of Energy and the Chicago energy company Exelon, whose subsidiary ComEd once owned the uranium processor, Cotter Corp.
Superfund law lets those entities — formally identified as “potentially responsible parties†— decide how to divide remediation costs among themselves. The Post-Dispatch was told that mediation on the matter had not yet begun.