EXTRA...

$21 million Massachusetts Military Reservation settlement

Settlement reached in $21 million Cape Cod Superfund Deal

Law 360 reports that a W.R. Grace & Co.  affiliate and other companies have reached a $21 million settlement with the U.S. government over contamination at a Cape Cod military installation that's now a Superfund site in a filing in its Chapter 11 case.

The case was a Superfund issue

The U.S. alleges that a pipeline running from a terminal on the Cape Cod Canal to Otis Air Force Base on the Massachusetts Military Reservation (MMR) spilled fuel in the 1960s or 1970s, contaminating local groundwater with benzene and other toxins.  Source.

Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances.

Superfund created the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and it provides broad federal authority to clean up releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment.

The law authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify parties responsible for contamination of sites and compel the parties to clean up the sites. Where responsible parties cannot be found, the Agency is authorized to clean up sites itself, using a special trust fund.

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