All News Releases By Date

 

EPA Gets $8.5 Million Settlement for Cleanup of Route 52 Superfund Site

Release Date: 5/17/2001
Contact Information: Ruth Wuenschel, (215) 814-5540

Contact: Ruth Wuenschel, (215) 814-5540

PHILADELPHIA – Joy Technologies has reached an $8.5 million settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to resolve claims relating to the hazardous waste cleanup of the Route 52 Superfund Site in Bluefield, W.Va. The U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware approved the settlement this week.

“We are pleased with the bankruptcy court settlement that, with interest, recovers over 80 percent of the taxpayer’s’ cost for this cleanup,” said Thomas C. Voltaggio, Acting Regional Administrator of EPA’s mid-Atlantic office.

The court approved a settlement agreement requiring Joy to reimburse the EPA for $7 million, plus interest, for the cleanup of the Mercer County site, which was contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from past industrial operations. Joy must also pay the government a $1.5 million penalty for failing to comply with a May 1996 EPA cleanup order.

From 1960 to 1980, Joy’s predecessor corporations, Joy Manufacturing Co. and Hart Electric Co., used the 2.1-acre facility to maintain and repair PCB-containing mining machinery. PCB, a probable human carcinogen, was once widely used as a coolant and insulator in electrical equipment. Under the Superfund law, companies that owned or operated a facility when hazardous substances were disposed of at the site are liable for cleanup costs.

From 1995 to 1997, EPA conducted an emergency cleanup of PBS in the soil and structures at the Route 52 Site and surrounding areas. EPA’s $9 million-plus cleanup included the demolition of several structures and disposal of tons of PCB-contaminated soil and concrete.

Joy filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition in June 1999. EPA’s settlement with Joy is subject to the court’s approval of the overall reorganization plan that the company has negotiated with all creditors in the bankruptcy proceeding. As part of the settlement, Joy neither admitted nor denied liability for the Superfund cleanup.