Riverkeeper, warehouse reach pollution settlement

A West Atlanta warehouse will finish cleaning up after a tenant that allegedly unleashed a tarry ooze into the Chattahoochee River, and pay $50,000 for green causes, to settle a pollution lawsuit brought by the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper.
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? M&K Warehouses will finish a state-approved cleanup of chemicals in water and soil that were left behind by its tenant, American Sealcoat, according to a settlement agreement filed in federal court on Monday morning.
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? From 2012 through part of 2014, American Sealcoat manufactured asphalt sealants at the site off I-20. According to a separate Riverkeeper lawsuit, American Sealcoat’s operations were so messy that its chemicals washed into a Chattahoochee tributary, leaving an oily trail behind. The owner told WSB-TV in February that she didn’t think her company’s product was to blame. (However, American Sealcoat did not contest the lawsuit or the $10 million fine which it’s now up to the federal Department of Justice to try to collect.)
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? What makes the settlement with M&K a landmark, according to the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, is the fact that a landlord is paying for something that a tenant did. The environmentalists argue that landowners are legally liable for violations of the federal Clean Water Act like this.
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? ??? “This settlement agreement shows that cooperation is much more effective and successful than conflict,” said Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Jason Ulseth in a written statement issued jointly with M&K after the settlement. “We think this case sends a clear message to other industrial operators and property owners that compliance with water quality laws is not optional and hope that it encourages them to follow M&K’s example of cooperation and compliance.”
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? M&K’s cleanup bill will come to something “substantially in excess” of $500,000, according to the company’s statements in court. The warehouse company will also pay CRK’s costs ($290,000) and donate $50,000 to causes of the Riverkeeper’s choice: the Turner Environmental Law Clinic at Emory and stream bank projects at a Chattahoochee River public boat launch on Highway 166 in Fulton County.
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? It’s the end of a nearly year-long legal wrangle that began with CRK’s suit in November, 2014. M&K was already working on cleanup this summer, under the supervision of the state Environmental Protection Division.
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? M&K counsel Bob Norman said in the written statement that the warehouse company acted quickly to start cleanup once American Sealcoat abandoned the property and is “pleased to reach a cooperative resolution on the Clean Water Act allegations with CRK. Them company is glad to have all this behind them.”
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