Town to make Superfund settlement
Published on November 21st, 2001
STONEHAM, MA - Stoneham has to pay $3,504 as part of a de minimis settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the Beede Waste Oil Superfund site in Plainstow, N.H.
The EPA announced on Nov. 15 that it had reached a settlement with 496 of the de minimis contributors to the site. De minimis parties contributed no more than 1,000 gallons of waste to the site. The total payment from these communities will be $1.6 million.
The settlement ends Stoneham’s involvement with the contaminated site through EPA liability releases and protection from private party lawsuits under the Superfund statute. The EPA will now go after the more heavy polluters for the rest of the money. The EPA estimates that long term site cleanup will cost somewhere between $30 and $60 million.
Stoneham Town Counsel Bill Solomon and his 2001 summer intern Eli Peng, a Stoneham resident and Tufts University student, worked on this case. Peng made a presentation to the Mass Municipal Association and the City Solicitors / Town Counsels Association about Beede.
“We got involved early on because we saw inequities,” Solomon said.
Solomon and Peng helped coordinate the responses of communities to the EPA. By doing so, Solomon said, they helped craft a settlement in which communities paid their fair shares.
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