Putnam landfill case near settlement

WINFIELD – A lawsuit filed over chemicals accepted at a Putnam County landfill is headed for resolution.

The proposed agreement calls for Disposal Services Inc. and Waste Management to pay the Putnam County Commission and the City of Hurricane about $600,000 for legal fees and other costs associated with the lawsuit.

The governments filed the lawsuit last year after the companies accepted thousands of gallons of chemicals from Freedom Industries in the wake of last January’s spill that contaminated the water of more than 300,000 residents in nine West Virginia counties.

DSI operates the landfill that is located near the Putnam border with Lincoln County.

The agreement also includes monitoring for the chemical MCHM at the landfill for five years. If it is detected, the landfill would stop its aeration process and leachate discharge that flows into Hurricane’s water treatment plant.

“The taxpayers are not out any money for our legal services,” said Charleston attorney Mike Callaghan, who represented Hurricane and Putnam County in the case.

The Putnam County Commission approved the agreement Tuesday. It still must receive final approval from Hurricane, DSI and WM.

In the original complaint, the governments sued DSI and WM after the landfill took in as much as 40,000 of crude MCHM and other chemicals from Freedom Industries. The governments said the landfill could not properly handle the chemicals, and they wanted to force the landfill to remove the material.