The various businesses and municipalities told they are financially responsible for the clean up thus far of a waste-oil site in Plymouth had two things working against them, in addition to the usual draconian Superfund rules: PCBs and toxic cleaning solvents also found their way onto the site, and the site’s owner kept extraordinarily good records of everyone he did business with. Nevertheless, until someone can show that the businesses sending oil to the site did anything wrong, the state should admit that its policies regarding waste-oil storage were inadequate at the time the site operated and pay the negotiated portion of the clean-up costs.

Under the state’s direction, car dealers, garages, school districts, 16 municipalities and others from 1965 to 1980 disposed of waste oil by sending it to the Portland-Bangor Waste Oil Co., which stored it in 1,000- to 2,000-gallon tanks at the Hows Corner site in Plymouth. In ’87, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection identified the site as the source of solvents that were leaching into nearby residential wells. The residences there have been since connected to clean water, but the question of who will pay the accumulated clean-up costs – currently at $8 million – has caused years of debate.

The practice for Superfund cleanups has been for the Environmental Protection Agency to dun the contributors of the mess. The operator of the site, George West Jr. of Wells, apparently doesn’t have resources to pay for the remediation, but Mr. West did have a detailed list of 517 people, businesses or communities that he had collected oil from and who, from the EPA’s standpoint, could be held culpable. The EPA, as it has during other Superfund negotiations, offered the potentially responsible parties a deal. Sign the consent decree, offering to pay your share, it said, and you don’t have to pay the so-called orphan share, which is the amount that cannot be collected from either defunct or struggling businesses, you’ll be protected from lawsuits from either the federal government or other businesses that have signed on, and you may qualify for a hardship waiver to further reduce your cost.

It’s not a bad deal given the alternative – a potential Department of Justice suit, further legal entanglements from the businesses that agreed to pay but want to see more potentially responsible parties (PRP) writing checks and no reduction in the orphan share, which totals several million dollars. The Legislature last session approved no-interest loans to help pay these costs. But better still would be for the state to admit its direction two decades ago was mistaken and agree before the Sept. 22 signing deadline to cover the costs for those who sign the decree. Gov. Angus King has built an impressive Rainy Day account for unanticipated expenses to state government. This would be an excellent occasion to use a portion of it.

No one will know the full cost of the cleanup until a study being financed by PRPs is completed and a plan to finish the project is decided upon. With luck, that plan will be appropriate to the scale of the contamination and lawmakers will recognize the state’s responsibility in this difficult problem.