Justice Department secures $1.37 million settlement for pollution cleanup costs at former A.A. Oil site in Indianapolis

justice-department-secures-1-37-million-settlement-for-pollution-cleanup-costs-at-former-a-a-oil-site-in-indianapolis

Zachary A. Myers, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, and Todd Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) at the U.S. Department of Justice, announced that the Justice Department has entered a consent decree granting the United States money for environmental clean-up costs, along with declaratory relief for costs associated with possible future remediation, relating to the A.A. Oil Site, located at 2340 S Tibbs Avenue, on the Southwest side of Indianapolis.

From the 1950s to the late 1980s, A.A. Oil Co., Inc., a division of Cam-Or, Inc., operated the Site as a waste oil collection, storage, and transfer facility. The waste oil was collected from garages, gas stations, oil change facilities, automobile dealers, and trucking companies, and was stored at the Site and then shipped to the Cam-Or facility in Westville, Indiana.

In 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted a site cleanup to remove the hazardous substances and contaminated surface soil and analyze any imminent or substantial endangerment to the public health or the environment.

On Feb. 13, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and ENRD sued the defendant companies pursuant to Section 107 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), a federal environmental remediation program that authorizes the United States to recover costs incurred in response to the release and threatened release of hazardous substances.

The complaint alleged that the site was contaminated by oil and other hazardous materials over past decades and, as a result, is contaminated with trichloroethylene, polychlorinated biphenyls, and other volatile organic compounds (benzene, toluene, and xylenes, among others) in soil, groundwater, and storage tanks.

As part of the resolution, the defendants, Arconic Corporation, Navistar Inc., and Ford Motor Company, agreed to pay the federal government a total of $1.37 million dollars without admission of liability. The complaint alleged that the defendant companies (in the case of Arconic and Navistar, through their predecessor corporations) transported hazardous materials to the Site, thus rendering them liable for these clean-up costs.

“All residents of the Southern District of Indiana deserve a safe, healthy, and pollution-free community,” said U.S. Attorney Myers. “The Department of Justice is committed to aggressively pursuing environmental enforcement and to holding polluters accountable.”

Members of the public who have concerns about environmental matters, including matters involving environmental justice issues, in the Southern District of Indiana can report them to the U.S. Attorney’s office via email to USAINS-Environmental@usdoj.gov. 

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