Document Yre2mNnx332dDRLMwMKOq4wOE

San Jose, CA . (Santa Clara Co.) News (Cir. D. 67,384) . fiUG 27 1 tJilUn * P. C. B F..ct. 1888 \H0^ EPA sues 16 to enforce waste laws The Washington Post' . . WASHINGTON - The Reagan administration Thursday sued 16 major firms and the owners of a hazardous-waste dump in Hamil ton, Ohio, in what officials called the administration's strongest ac tion yet to enforce toxic-waste laws. The lawsuit came after the gov ernment had reached a $2.4 mil lion settlement with more than 100 other companies that used the 10acre Chem-Dyne Corp. dump in downtown Hamilton to store hun dreds of thousands of gallons of chemical and industrial wastes, in eluding arsenic and fCRs~ Environmental Protection Agen cy chief Anne M. Gorsuch said the settlement is the largest voluntary waste cleanup commitment by in dustry so far. In a statement, she called the number of companies participating "dramatic evidence of a new trend. We believe this is being engendered by EPA's ap proach of a willingness to negoti ate, backed with a strong enforce ment commitment." The suit, alleging violations of the Resource Conservation and Re covery Act and the so-called Su perfund law, was filed in U.S. Dis- trict Court in Cincinnati against those companies that refused to take part in the negotiations. Among the defendants are Mon santo, B.F. Goodrich, Shell Oil, Georgia-Pacific and Phillips Pe troleum. Officials at EPA and the Justice Department, whose enforcement record under the 1980 Superfund law has been criticized as lacklus ter by members of Congress and environmental groups, described the action on the Chem-Dyne site as a model for handling such clean up problems. A Justice Department official said it was the first suit the admin istration has filed under the Super fund law, which set up a $1.6 bil lion industry-government financed fund to clean up hazardous waste sites around the country. Several earlier suits have been amended to add Superfund claims and defen dants. Michael Brown, enforcement counsel at EPA who supervised the negotiations, said he feels Thurs day's action will "help stop resis tance to future agreements. Hope fully, it will lead to a pattern of negotiations, and assurances that if companies don't come on board we will take legal action." Dave Linnett of the Environ mental Defense Fund called the suit "a good sign," but added, "The fact that the administration has filed a Superfund case shouldn't be a cause for celebration. We've had to lower expectations because the (enforcement) performance has been so bad for the past 18 months." The suit said the Chem-Dyne fa cility contains 11,500, 55-gallon drums of chemical wastes, includ ing PCBs, vinyl chloride andarsenic. It is located near the water treatment plant for Hamilton, a city of 85,000, as well as near a hospital and several ball fields. PCB-ARCH-EXT0376105