Chemical Makers To Pay For Cleanup Of Site

More than a dozen chemical manufacturers have agreed in a settlement to pay $14.3 million to EPA and Maryland to stabilize and cover waste and contaminated soil at a former pesticide blending facility in Ha­gerstown, Md. “This remedy will protect the groundwater from further contamination by the wastes in the soil,” says EPA Regional Administrator Shawn M. Garvin. The Central Chemical site, which operated from the 1930s to the 1980s, is on the agency’s list, created under the federal Superfund law, of the most polluted places in the U.S. It is contaminated with the now globally banned or restricted pesticides aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, and methoxychlor. Under the settlement, the companies also will collectively reimburse EPA more than $945,000 for past and future costs of overseeing the site. Chemical makers involved in the settlement—long-standing companies, newly formed ones, and those whose assets are now owned by others—include Arkema, Bayer CropScience, Chemours, FMC, Honeywell, Montrose Chemical, Occidental Chemical, Olin, Rohm and Haas, Rhône-Poulenc, Shell Oil, Syngenta Crop Protection, and Union Carbide.