The judgment of the US District Court, Eastern District of Arkansas requires Hercules and Uniroyal to pay the US government $102,878,641.35 for costs incurred by EPA in cleaning up dioxin-contaminated hazardous wastes at the Vertac Superfund Site in Jacksonville, Arkansas. Under the law, that money must be returned to the Superfund, where it can be used to clean up other hazardous waste sites across the country.
The Vertac site, one of the worst dioxin-contaminated sites in the country, was a herbicide manufacturing
plant operated by Hercules and Vertac Chemical Corp. from the 1960s to the 1980s. Its products included Agent
Orange, a defoliant agent used in the Vietnam War. The facility operations caused widespread contamination of soil,
groundwater and surface waters on the site and in surrounding areas, including the yards of neighbouring homes. In
addition, when the facility closed in 1987, more than 28,000 leaking drums of corrosive, ignitable hazardous wastes
were left on the site, presenting an imminent danger to the surrounding community.
EPA incurred approximately $105 million in costs for cleaning up and incinerating the drummed dioxin
waste, as well as supervising Hercules’ performance of a series of remedial actions ordered by EPA to clean up
contaminated soil and groundwater. The state of Arkansas incurred an additional $10.7 million for incineration of
the drum waste, which was paid for by a trust fund created by a prior settlement with Vertac Chemical Corp. Other
defendants in the case also reached earlier settlements with the United States, totaling $7.6 million.
The two remaining defendants, Hercules and Uniroyal, declined to settle and challenged the
United States’ right to recover EPA’s costs. Hercules and Uniroyal argued that EPA had overestimated
the health hazards of dioxin, that a less thorough cleanup should have been done, and that they shouldn’t have to
pay for the costs of cleanup.
District Judge George Howard overruled the defendants’ arguments and awarded the United States summary
judgement for the full amount of the costs it has incurred to date. In addition, the court awarded the United
States a declaratory judgement for future costs, which are estimated at approximately $5 million.
“This ruling means we can clean up more hazardous waste sites and make our communities safer and more
livable,” said Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General for Environment and Natural Resources at the Department
of Justice.
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