La. settlement near in Superfund cleanup

La. settlement near in Superfund cleanup

	Published : Fri, 28 Sep 2007 22:11 By : Agencies Print this Story

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Federal prosecutors say they have tentative settlements in a 2002 case over a Superfund site in eastern New Orleans, and they want a judge to delay all court proceedings until early next year in hope of reaching final versions.

Prosecutors have asked for a stay until Jan. 4 to 'pursue promising settlement discussions' about the Agriculture Street Landfill, which the city ran from 1909 until the late 1950s and reopened to burn storm debris after Hurricane Betsy in 1965.

Prosecutors wrote that they have tentative settlements in principle with the remaining named defendants and that a consent decree with a third party was recently entered by the court, they wrote in court papers filed Thursday.

The lawsuit originally named the city, Delta By-Products Inc., CFI Industries Inc., and Edward Levy Metals Inc. as defendants.

CFI and its parent company, IPC Inc., agreed in March 2005 to pay $1.75 million, plus interest. BFI Waste Systems of North America Inc. -- a third party brought into the site because several defendants claimed it should pay for part of the cleanup -- agreed in November to pay $335,000 plus interest. None of the companies admitted liability.

Attorneys on both sides either declined comment or did not return telephone messages.

Numerous extensions already have been granted due to disruptions caused by Hurricane Katrina and continuing efforts to settle the case.

Residential neighborhoods were built in the 1970s and '80s over more than 40 acres of the one-time landfill, which took ash from municipal incinerators as well as commercial waste during its first half-century.

The Environmental Protection Agency added the site to its national Superfund list of sites most in need of cleanup in 1994, after finding arsenic, lead and other hazardous substances.

In 1999, the government sued the city for access to the site, a request a judge granted. Three years later, the government sued -- this time, for enforcement costs and civil penalties for the denial of access and specific information about the site and similar sites operating in the city from 1909-1968.

The government, in its lawsuit, claimed that the city; Letellier-Phillips Paper Co., later CFI Industries; and Delta By-Products were liable for costs because each, at some time, owned or operated part of the site when hazardous materials were dumped there.