Five companies have agreed to compensate the United States and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania nearly $21.4 million in cash and valuable property to address natural resource damages resulting from decades of zinc smelting operations at the Palmerton Zinc Pile Superfund site in northeast Pennsylvania, the Justice Department and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania announced today.
The settlement is the largest natural resource damage settlement to date in Pennsylvania.
CBS Operations Inc., TCI Pacific Communications Inc., CBS/Westinghouse of Pa. Inc., HH Liquidating Corp. and HRD Liquidating Corp., agreed to make a cash payment of $9.875 million and to transfer 1200 acres of valuable property, known as the Kings Manor property and valued at approximately $8.72 million, to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
The companies’ cash payment will be deposited into the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration Trust Fund to be used to restore, replace, or acquire the equivalent of natural resources injured as a result of releases of hazardous substances at the Palmerton Zinc site.
In addition, the companies agreed to pay $2.5 million for damage assessment costs and to discharge a mortgage worth $300,000 on the Wildlife Information Center (Lehigh Gap Nature Center), a non-profit conservation and environmental education organization, located at the Lehigh Gap.
“The funds and property recovered from this settlement will result in a cleaner, restored environment to counteract the damages that were incurred as a result of the years of harmful emissions from smelter operations,” said John C. Cruden, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division.
The Palmerton Zinc Pile Superfund Site consists of a broad area impacted by emissions of contaminants from historic zinc smelting operations and more recent zinc-recovery operations at a plant site located twenty-five miles north of Allentown, Pa., in Palmerton, Pa. Over ninety years of smelting operations by the former New Jersey Zinc Co., emitted hazardous materials including arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, manganese and zinc into the surrounding environment through air emissions and the release of solid wastes.
Large quantities of the hazardous materials were carried by wind and deposited over surrounding areas resulting in defoliation and contamination of thousands of acres throughout the ridge and valley area of eastern Pennsylvania. The National Park Service owns and maintains approximately 800 acres of land that has been acquired to protect the Appalachian National Scenic Trail in this area, which winds along the Blue Mountain ridge and through the associated gaps.
Hazardous materials subsequently contaminated several miles of Aquashicola Creek and the Lehigh River as a result of erosion, surface runoff, and shallow ground water contamination.
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Key Facts
- State: Pennsylvania
- Category: Environmental Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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