DOJ, EPA Reach Settlement with Weyerhaeuser

The United States Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a settlement that will require Weyerhaeuser Co. to clean up the Plainwell Mill and 12th Street landfill in Plainwell, Mic., which are portions of the Kalamazoo River Superfund site. The settlement also requires Weyerhaeuser to reimburse EPA for about $138,000 in costs incurred in connection with the mill and landfill.

In addition to paying EPA’s past costs, Weyerhaeuser will pay $6.2 million that EPA will use to fund the cleanup of PCB contamination in the Kalamazoo River. The settlement also requires Weyerhaeuser to withdraw its objections to a related settlement with Plainwell, Inc., its corporate parent and several affiliated companies, which is now pending in bankruptcy court.

According to a release by the US DOJ, Weyerhaeuser is one of several companies responsible for PCB contamination at the Kalamazoo River Superfund Site, which includes the mill, the landfill, a portion of the Kalamazoo River, and other areas.

The PCB contamination at the site resulted primarily from paper companies which produced and processed PCB-containing carbonless copy paper along the river between the 1950s and 1970s. The settlement does not resolve Weyerhaeuser’s liability for the cleanup of PCBs at any part of the site other than the mill and landfill. Nor does it resolve Weyerhaeuser’s liability for natural resource damages at the site.