Utility Agrees to Pay DC $57M in Record Environmental Settlement

WASHINGTON — The Washington, D.C., area’s biggest electrical utility agreed this week to pay a $57 million settlement that will be used to clean up contaminants it dumped into the Anacostia River.

The settlement with the D.C. attorney general was the largest environmental settlement in Washington’s history.

It also gives a glimpse of what is happening with other environmental lawsuits over polychlorinated biphenyls, also known as “forever chemicals.”

The two settlement agreements in federal and local courts in Washington also require Potomac Electric Power Company to clean up its facilities that stored PCB chemicals. Utilities used PCBs as coolants and lubricants in transformers, capacitors and other electrical equipment. 

PCBs have been linked to cancer and neurological deficits. They can take decades to degrade naturally. They also have been found in the tissues of fish who ingested them.

The chemicals were manufactured in the United States from 1929 until the Environmental Protection Agency banned them in 1979.

PEPCO did not admit wrongdoing but said in a statement that it was committed to cleaning up contaminated sediments in the Anacostia River. The utility said it stopped using any harmful chemicals “more than a decade ago.”

Other contaminants found in the sediments have included heavy metals and pesticides. Not all of them came from PEPCO.

The District of Columbia started cleaning up the river in 2020. The first phase was scheduled for 77 acres and expected to cost $35.5 million.

The settlement includes $10 million in penalties and $47 million for cleanup. Additional compensation could be assessed under the agreement after further analysis determines whether PEPCO’s decommissioned plants along the river at Benning Road and Buzzard Point need environmental remediation.

Some of PEPCO’s pollution appears to have continued until 2013 while it dumped contaminated water collected from petroleum-filled transformers into storm sewers. It was stopped when the District of Columbia Department of Energy and Environment issued a cease-and-desist order.

Carmel Henry, vice president of the D.C. NAACP, said in a statement, “Releasing hazardous chemicals into the Anacostia River has had long-term disproportionate financial and health impacts on low-income Black D.C. residents. We owe justice, accountability and restitution to the residents of Buzzard Point, Anacostia, Benning Rd., and other hot spots in the district that were impacted by the contamination.”

Similar words of outrage were voiced by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Sept. 20 when he announced the city was suing agricultural chemical company Monsanto Co. and its affiliates.

Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer Corp. in 2018, was the largest PCB producer in the United States. The liability for its chemicals continues with Bayer.

The Chicago lawsuit accuses Monsanto officials of covering up the fact they knew PCBs were toxic but continued manufacturing them. The chemicals have been found in Lake Michigan, sediment of the Chicago River and other sites around the city.

“Yet Monsanto intentionally misled the public about these key facts, maintaining that its PCB formulations were safe, were not environmentally hazardous, and did not require any special precautions in use or disposal,” says the lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court.

Other lawsuits over PCBs have been resolved recently, leading to huge payoffs for the affected states.

Environmental officials in Pennsylvania last month announced a $100 million settlement with Monsanto and chemical companies Solutia Inc. and Pharmacia LLC. In addition to agricultural chemicals, the companies used PCBs to make household and pharmaceutical products.

Pennsylvania officials say they sometimes allowed PCBs to leak into the state’s waterways.

In Virginia, Attorney General Jason Miyares and his team secured an $80 million settlement from Monsanto in September. PCBs have contaminated as much as 1,300 miles of rivers, 75,000 lake acres, and 2,000 square miles of bays and estuaries in Virginia, according to the attorney general’s office.

“PCBs have negatively impacted nearly every living thing in Virginia,” Miyares said. “They have harmed public health, our land, wildlife, fish, and our beloved waterways like the Chesapeake Bay.”

The settlement funds are planned to be used for restitution to persons who suffered harm from the chemicals and remediation of contaminated sites.

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