US says 3M to pay $15.5 mln for dump site cleanup

WASHINGTON - Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing will pay $15.5 million to reimburse the federal government for cleanup work at a dump site in northern Ohio and for injuries to natural resources in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the Justice Department said last week. The settlement, filed in federal court in Akron, resolved a lawsuit filed in 1997. The company had arranged for daily disposal of wastes from a printing operation in Cleveland at the dump site in the 1950s and 1960s, the department said in a news release. According to the settlement, 3M will pay $14.7 million to reimburse the government for costs incurred by the Department of the Interior in cleaning up hazardous substances at the former dump. The department said 3M also will pay $800,000 for injuries to natural resources in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The federal government purchased the property containing the dump site in 1980. In 1986 the Park Service discovered the former salvage yard contained large quantities of hazardous wastes, much of which had been covered by abandoned junk and vegetation. REUTERS NEWS SERVICE