Attorney General Philip T. McLaughlin and Department of Environmental Services (DES) Assistant Commissioner Dana Bisbee today announced that the owners of a Pelham junkyard have agreed to settle the state's claims that the business contaminated soil, groundwater and wetlands with hazardous waste, oil and PCBs.

Under a consent decree approved by the Hillsborough County Superior Court on September 7, 2001, the state will receive roughly $640,000 over the next three years to clean up the Gendron junkyard on Hobbs Road in Pelham. For more than twenty years, Frederick Gendron operated an auto shredding business, F. Gendron & Co., which accumulated about 12,000 tons of hazardous waste and PCB-contaminated debris at the junkyard owned by Gendron and his wife, Elizabeth.

The state filed suit against the Gendrons in 1997 after it found that the piles contained hazardous waste. In 1998, the court granted the state's request that the shredding operation be shut down. Because the Gendrons claimed they were insolvent, the state asked the federal government to fund removal of the waste piles with Superfund monies to address the immediate risks to human health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just completed the removal operation earlier this year at a cost of more than $2 million. The state must now fashion a long-term cleanup that addresses remaining environmental risks from residual hazardous waste and oil in underlying soils and groundwater.

Although the state was concerned that the contaminants threatened nearby drinking water wells and, as a precaution, provided bottled water to area residents for about a year, state testing shows that contamination from the junkyard has not affected drinking water supplies. The state plans to continue monitoring wells in the residential area surrounding the junkyard.

Under the terms of the consent decree, Gendron's insurer will immediately pay the state $187,000, with additional installments over the next three years to total $637,050, which will be deposited in the state's Hazardous Waste Cleanup Fund. The money will be used to investigate remaining contamination and to perform necessary cleanup actions, including wetlands restoration and long term monitoring of groundwater.

The decree also provides the state with a conservation easement on the whole property, including the adjoining residence, for purposes of conducting the final cleanup. The state holds a lien on the property and eventually will obtain title to the entire parcel. In the meantime, Gendron is allowed to conduct some limited recycling of clean scrap metal for the next five years, subject to town ordinances.

Attorney General McLaughlin said: "Our office has vigorously pursued the defendants to make certain that they, not the public, pay for the environmental problems that they have caused and that they are penalized in some way for their actions. By obtaining the property and funding for the state cleanup, we believe that we have accomplished both goals. Most importantly, this settlement ensures that the work needed to ensure protection of public health will be performed."

DES Assistant Commissioner Bisbee noted that the settlement is an excellent result to a difficult case. He added, "The substantial amount of effort made to successfully prevent contaminants from migrating off-site was facilitated by the close working partnership between DES and EPA. Our agency will now be continuing down that pathway by developing, in collaboration with town officials, a plan that will be protective of public health and the environment for the long term."

For further information contact Maureen D. Smith, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Environmental Protection Bureau, at (603) 271-3679