EPA Can't Evade Firm's $2.7M Claim

摘要

A Richmond, Va., federal appeals court has resurrected an environmental consultant's legal fight for $2.7 million in federal funds to cover its work at a Superfund cleanup site, rejecting a lower court's dismissal of its claim over a technicality. In ordering the U.S. district court to reconsider the case, appellate judges in a December ruling dispute the assertion that August Mack Environmental Inc. is not entitled to payment because it did not submit a form the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said has not been used in 25 years. The consultant was hired as supervising cleanup contractor by chemical firm Vertel-lus for a contaminated 38-acre former West Virginia disposal site on the U.S. Superfund cleanup list. Vertellus signed a cleanup pact with EPA and the state in 2012, as did ExxonMobil and CBS Corp. from its 1995 buy of Westinghouse Electric, which used the site. The cleanup fund totaled $37 million, said the court. EPA assumed Vertellus' work after it filed for bankruptcy and stopped activity in 2016. EPA approved a removal plan by August Mack, at the site from 2012 to 2016.