NCR, Appleton Papers Liable for $950 Million in Fox River Cleanup Costs
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A U.S. Federal judge in San Francisco, Calif., has ruled in a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) lawsuit that plaintiffs NCR Corp. and Appleton Papers Inc. are liable for an estimated $950 million in combined cleanup costs and reimbursement of natural resource damages related to PCB contamination at the nation's largest Superfund site, located in eastern Wisconsin.
From the 1950s to the 1970s, NCR manufactured carbonless copy paper using polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at the site, which includes the Lower Fox River. The river flows 39 miles from Lake Winnebago to Green Bay, Wis. Recycling mills later processed NCR's wastepaper at the site.
In the ruling, U.S. District Court Judge William C. Griesbach of the Eastern District of Wisconsin reversed part of his February 2011 decision stating that private parties such as the defendants lack legal standing to seek NRDs under Section 113 of CERCLA. That decision had blocked defendants from suing for NRD reimbursement from NCR and Appleton Papers.
The case, Appleton Papers Inc. and NCR Corp. v. George A. Whiting Paper Co. et al., was filed in 2008 by NCR and Appleton Papers seeking to hold the recycling mills liable under CERCLA for hundreds of millions of dollars they had spent to clean up contamination at the site.
However, in 2009, the Court found that NCR and Appleton Papers profited from the use of PCBs that made their product hazardous, knew there was a risk of environmental damage, and were responsible for cleaning up the contamination. In contrast, the recycling mills had almost no knowledge of their PCB discharges and made no profit from PCBs in the carbonless copy wastepaper they recycled.
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