U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently reached an $11 million settlement with Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company for contamination clean-up.
EPA's settlement reimburses for the contamination clean-up at the Maunabo Groundwater Superfund Site in Puerto Rico, according to a Jan. 18 news release.
"We are pleased to have reached a settlement with the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company that holds it accountable – not the taxpayer – for the cleanup of contamination at its property and protects the Maunabo community," Regional Administrator Lisa F. Garcia said in the release. “This settlement reimburses EPA for its work in assessing the contamination, designing the remedy and cleaning up the groundwater contamination.”
The Maunabo Groundwater Contamination Site is on the southeastern coast of Puerto Rico, where the groundwater has been contaminated with various volatile organic compounds, including tetrachloroethene, trichloroethene and dichloroethene. Four wells on the site provide drinking water to the Maunabo Urbano public water system, which currently gets its drinking water from safe sources, according to the news release.
EPA chose, selected, designed and implemented the site's remedy through its Superfund program. During that process, EPA identified one or more tenants at the site's industrial park, owned by Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, as a source of the volatile organic compounds contamination, the release reported.
In 2015, Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company declined settlement discussions and the U.S. Department of Justice subsequently filed a civil lawsuit in federal court in Puerto Rico to recover clean-up costs, according to the release. The court agreed the company was legally responsible for the contaminated groundwater. The company appealed and the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court's ruling.
