Cleanup of oil site shared Businesses, agencies to pay $2.6 million

It still doesn’t seem fair to many of them, but more than 130 Maine small-business owners and government entities have agreed to pay nearly $3 million to help the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency clean up a former waste oil disposal site in Plymouth.

The businesses, many of them now defunct or sold to new owners, had their waste oil hauled away by the Portland-Bangor Waste Oil Co. from 1965 to 1980.

The company disposed of the used oil at four sites in Maine, including Hows Corner on Route 7 in Plymouth. After wells near the site were found to be contaminated, the EPA declared the facility a Superfund site, removed 850 tons of soil and built a new water-supply system for houses in the area.

Under an agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Bangor on Wednesday, the EPA agreed to pay 60 percent of the $6.5 million spent so far to clean up Hows Corner. The small-business owners, cities, towns, school districts and federal agencies have agreed to pay the remaining $2.6 million.

A federal judge in New Hampshire is reviewing the settlement. Federal judges in Maine declined to review it because it involves businesses from every corner of the state and presumably they all, at one time, represented one of the companies or towns involved as lawyers in private practice.

To help ease the sting of the cleanup cost, a bill has been introduced in the Legislature to have the state reimburse many of those who agreed to pay the EPA.

LD 1408, sponsored by Rep. Stephen Stanley, D-Medway, would reimburse those who paid up to $75,000 to the EPA. Those whose tabs were more than $75,000 could get a loan from the state. The bill is co-sponsored by 42 other lawmakers from Biddeford to Limestone.

“The people involved … did what the state of Maine recommended at the time,” Stanley said Thursday. “They did nothing wrong.”

The state told garages, car dealers and towns to sell their dirty oil to the waste oil company as a means of disposing it. Now, because the company is defunct and its owner, George West, has no money, those same companies and towns are being told they have to pay the bill.

“I feel bad they got caught up in [it],” Stanley said.

Under the agreement with the EPA, those who felt they could not pay the amount assessed by the federal agency could apply for an ability-to-pay waiver. The EPA estimates that 70 parties may be released from paying because they don’t have the money.

A program similar to what Stanley proposes was set up several years ago to reimburse those parties that paid to clean up waste oil contamination at a site in Wells that was owned by the same company.

Stanley proposes to use the remaining $3.1 million from the Wells cleanup fund to pay for the Plymouth cleanup. Any additional money that is needed would come from the state’s Rainy Day Fund. Stanley proposed to put $7.5 million into the fund to offset any future cleanup costs.

The EPA has not concluded its cleanup work in Plymouth so additional costs, likely in the millions of dollars, will be incurred in the future. The same parties that have already agreed to pay the EPA would be asked to also pay for the future costs.

Gov. Angus King is supportive of the plan to have the state pay for cleanup costs but is not “married to the idea” of taking the money from the Rainy Day Fund, said his spokesman, John Ripley.

“The governor believes it’s the right thing to do,” Ripley said of his support for the bill.

The specter of being asked to produce more money down the road worries Bud Prouty, owner of Prouty Ford in Dover-Foxcroft. But, he said, he signed the settlement agreement with the EPA because he felt he had no choice. His business has been asked to pay $31,000 toward the cleanup. It was billed another $17,000 for the study of the site that was conducted before any cleanup even began.

“The whole thing as it unrolled was unfair,” he said Thursday.

He said businesses are cornered because they are told they must sign on to the settlement or face the prospect of being sued by the EPA for even greater sums of money than the agency is now asking. In addition, to be eligible for the state reimbursement, entities must sign the agreement with the EPA.

“It’s a bad situation,” he said.

Sen. Peter Mills, R-Cornville, also has put in a bill that would help cover the cost of cleaning up Hows Corner. Under his bill, the Finance Authority of Maine would issue bonds for up to $65 million to cover costs at the four sites formerly owned by West, which in addition to Plymouth and Wells are in Ellsworth and Casco. To repay the bonds, a 20-cent surcharge would be placed on every quart of oil sold in the state.

A public hearing on both bills is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, March 28, before the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee in Room 435 of the State House.