Maine Supreme Court to hear HoltraChem cleanup case
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court was scheduled to hear oral arguments today in a legal battle over cleanup at the riverside site of the former HoltraChem Manufacturing Co. in Orrington, one of the most contaminated sites in Maine history.
The Portland Press Herald reported the St. Louis-based pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt LLC, which became responsible for the site after HoltraChem went bankrupt in 2001, wants to overturn an order from the Maine Board of Environmental Protection that would require it to spend an estimated $250 million to dig up contaminants, including mercury, from on-site landfills for removal.
The company has proposed a variety of less expensive cleanup methods, including on-site containment, consolidation of contaminants or a combination of soil removal and containment, the newspaper reported. Jeffrey Talbert, an attorney for Mallinckrodt, wrote in arguments submitted to the court that the company has already spent $40 million on cleanup at the site and proposed spending $100 million more. The 235-acre site, with 77 contaminated acres, is now owned by the town of Orrington.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection contends the company’s cleanup efforts have been inadequate and that a 2010 ruling in Superior Court upheld the order requiring the more extensive cleanup.
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