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EPA Reaches Agreement With Responsible Parties On Cleanup At Federal Superfund Site in Barceloneta, P.R.

Release Date: 04/17/1998
Contact Information:

(#98033) San Juan, P.R. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently finalized an agreement with ten responsible parties to clean up the Barceloneta Landfill Superfund site and to maintain the cleanup systems in the future. The site was a municipal waste landfill that also accepted industrial and pharmaceutical wastes, which caused the chemical contamination of soils and groundwater.

EPA Regional Administrator Jeanne M. Fox said, "The cooperation of all the parties in this consent decree will quickly lead to the cleanup work to address the problems posed by this site. EPA will oversee cleanup activities to ensure that the proper actions are being taken to protect public health and the environment."

The agreement is embodied in a Consent Decree, which was entered with the Federal District Court in San Juan on March 31, 1998. Under the terms of the agreement, nine private parties and the Municipality of Barceloneta voluntarily consented to perform the design and actual cleanup measures selected by EPA in 1996 for the federal Superfund site. The cleanup work is valued at approximately $10.5 million and includes the construction of a landfill cap, installation of stormwater controls and groundwater monitoring. The nine private parties are: Abbott Laboratories, American Cyanamid Company, Browning-Ferris Industries of Puerto Rico, Inc., E.I.

Du Pont de Nemours & Company, Merck & Company, Inc., Pharmacia & UpJohn, Roche Products, Inc., Schering-Plough Products, Inc., and Union Carbide Corporation. The settlement also calls for the landfill owner, the municipality of Barceloneta, to repay EPA $425,000 for past clean-up costs at the site, and for all the settling parties to pay up to $400,000 in future oversight costs.

Although all of the parties are ultimately responsible for carrying out the entire cleanup, the parties have reached a separate agreement among themselves to divide the work. That agreement calls for the private parties to undertake the cleanup and for the municipality to undertake the operation and maintenance part of the remedial action.

For more information contact:
Carl Soderberg
EPA Caribbean Environmental Protection Division
1492 Ponce De Leon Avenue
Santurce, PR 00909
Voice: 787-729-6951 FAX: 787-729-7747 E-Mail: soderberg.carl@epamail.epa.gov