California settles with more companies over use of hazardous waste landfill

California's attorney general filed a second consent decree covering 75 additional parties tied to the Vine Hill Complex, a Contra Costa County hazardous waste site that stopped taking outside waste in 1987 and still leaks arsenic, lead, nickel, benzene and chloroform into groundwater. The original operator went bankrupt in 2002, leaving the trust overseeing the site without money for required monitoring and containment.

Each settling company will pay $117.78 per ton of waste it sent to the site, dividing more than $175 million in costs across roughly 1.46 million tons. Calpine-linked Calistoga Holdings owes about $768,000; Six Flags, Texas Instruments and Timex owe roughly $1,500 apiece for a dozen tons each.

The decree now sits open for 30 days of public comment before a court can approve it, following a 2021 agreement that settled with 57 other parties on the same terms.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.