Source: Statesville Record & Landmark (NC), October 4, 2011
Posted on: http://envfpn.advisen.com
The Statesville City Council approved a settlement plan with the federal government Monday night that calls for the city to pay $25,000 as its share of the clean-up costs of a site contaminated by materials contained in electrical transformers.
City Attorney Eddie Gaines told the council that the settlement is less than the legal fees and court costs associated with a trial should the city choose to fight the matter.
“So it is my recommendation that the city accept the settlement offer,” Gaines said.
Earlier, Gaines explained that the matter involves a Fayetteville company called Carolina Transformer, which not only performed repair work on transformers but allowed for the disposal of them on the company’s property during a period of time between the late 1950s and mid-1980s. The transformers contained polychlorinated biphenyl — or PCB — a chemical compound that seeps into the land and contaminates it.
After failing to heed several demands to clean the site up by the both the state of the North Carolina and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA spent its own money in what has become known as the Superfund and began a clean-up effort of its own.
As part of that effort, the federal government sued Carolina Transformer and the many municipalities and utility providers that did business with the company.
Gaines told the council that “there is evidence” the city of Statesville was one of those municipalities.
After the meeting, Gaines told the R&L that even though “paper trail” that linked Statesville to Carolina Transformer was a tenuous one and the city might well win in federal court, the costs for that possible victory would “well exceed” the settlement amount.
The council agreed that the fight wasn’t worth it and approved Gaines’ recommendation by an 8-0 vote.
Also at Monday’s meeting, the city council:n Heard a report from Assistant City Manager Larry Pressley about a low-interest loan available to the city that would cover most of the costs related to the expansion of the Third Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant.
Pressley said he had earlier that day that the city had qualified for a state government-backed loan for $17.5 million the city could use to expand Third Creek from a four million gallons per day operation to one that could process six million gallons.
The council took no action on the matter and Mayor Costi Kutteh made clear that no action toward the securing of the funds would needed to be made until 2013.
Kutteh said city leaders could evaluate the economic situation and population growth trends at that time and make a decision on whether or not to move forward.
Approved the second reading on several city ordinance amendments. One of these amendments will reduce the amount of time cars can park in West Broad Street parking spots closest to Mitchell Community College from two hours to one hour.