$40M settlement reached to clean up Rhode Island site

December 23, 2016 4:19 pm

By: The Associated Press

news@abc6.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I., – State and federal environmental officials have an announced a settlement worth about $40 million to clean up an environmentally contaminated Superfund site along the Blackstone River in Cumberland and Lincoln.

Under terms of the settlement filed Friday in federal court in Providence, 22 defendants will be responsible for paying for the plan selected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Protection.

The site is known as Operable Unit Two of the Peterson/Puritan Inc. site, and was once home to a landfill owned and operated by J.M. Mills Inc.

The plan includes excavation of contaminated soils and sediments, capping and long-term monitoring.

Officials say hazardous materials were dumped at the site from 1954 until the late 1980s, polluting the soil, groundwater, surface water and sediments.