NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Bridgestone Americas Inc. has agreed to pay $1.49 million toward the cleanup of Superfund waste sites in Alliance and Ravenna, Ohio, where the Environmental Protection Agencyremoved possibly toxic and/or ignitable materials from 2016 through 2019.
The 2.5-acre site in Alliance is identified as a property formerly owned by Crest Rubber Co., which went into receivership in 2016 after its former owner, David Clark, died. At that time. Clark's estate abandoned the property as burdensome to the estate, according to information at that time from the Clark family's attorneys.
In a prepared statement, Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations Inc. said it has "worked constructively and proactively with the Environmental Protection Agency to remove excess raw materials stored by Crest Rubber Co. at the former Crest Rubber Co. facilities located in Alliance, Ohio, and Ravenna, Ohio."
Nashville-based BATO added it "will continue to work with EPA to bring all remaining issues to completion."
In its comments on the issue, published earlier this year in the Federal Register, the EPA said the settlement with Bridgestone Americas and BATO also includes Firestone Polymers L.L.C.; FSPC Holdco L.L.C.; Firestone Industrial Products Co. L.L.C.; and Bridgestone Bandag L.L.C.
Bridgestone said its operations had sent "unused raw materials and uncured rubber" to Crest Rubber for beneficial recycling into rubber products prior to Crest Rubber's going bankrupt.
"… some of those materials as well as materials from others" were left behind at Crest Rubber's facilities in Ravenna and Alliance.
Initial reports filed in mid-2017 about the site indicated the presence of about 500 55-gallon drums of waste material, some of which showed labels for methyl-ethyl ketone, acetone, Dicup 40C and VOL-Cup 40 KE, according to the original notice of violation by Ohio EPA dated Oct. 27, 2016.
The Ohio EPA passed the site on to the federal EPA in 2017. The site was declared cleared in 2017 and sold to the city of Alliance, which since has razed the structures that were on the site.
The Alliance site was one of seven facilities Crest Rubber operated when it went into receivership.
