[CPEO-BIF] Supreme Court rules against CTS Asheville (North Carolina) neighbors in TCE case

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

NC Landowners Too Late to Fight Contamination

By BARBARA LEONARD
Courthouse News Service
June 9, 2014
WASHINGTON (CN) - Distinguishing it from a statute of limitations,  
the Supreme Court on Monday found that a North Carolina statute of  
repose prevents landowners from suing over toxic contamination.

The dispute involves a tract of land in Asheville where CTS Corp. had  
for decades stored notable quantities of trichloroethylene (TCE) and  
manufactured products using TCE, cyanide, chromium VI and lead.

When CTS sold the facility in 1987, it promised realtors that the  
property "had been rendered in an environmentally clean condition."  
The company said that, "to the best of [its] knowledge, no on-site  
disposal or otherwise wanton disposal methods were practiced at [the]  
facility," and that as soon as "the existing inventory of materials  
contained in drums and other miscellaneous equipment within the plant  
[was] removed from the premises, no threat to human health or the  
environment [would] remain."

Dozens of buyers nevertheless soon learned that their well water  
contained concentrated levels of TCE and cis-1,2-dichloroethane  
(DCE), solvents that have carcinogenic effects.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/06/09/68565.htm

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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