Alpha Ideas

Hat Tip : Zafar

Eden Prairie, Minnetonka and five other cities have filed lawsuits against seven refiners of coal tar for allegedly contaminating numerous storm water ponds with pollutant and potentially carcinogenic chemicals.

The cities claim seven companies — Koppers Inc., Ruetgers Canada Inc., Rain Carbon Holdings, Rain Carbon LLC, Stella-Jones Corp., Coppers Creek Chemical Corporation and Lone Star Specialty Products LLC — knew their pavement-sealant products would significantly contaminate their environments and continued to sell them as safe products.

The suits target the cost of disposing of this waste, which is necessary to protect public health from exposure to PAHs during dredging operations, the complaints say, arguing that “the polluter should pay for the increased costs of these additional disposal requirements, not the taxpayers.” A statement released along with the complaints estimates the cost of cleanup will run into the hundreds of millions of dollars at minimum.

-From SW News Media

Surprisingly, such a material event was NOT disclosed to the Stock Exchanges.