Bankruptcy Judge Ronald Pearson yesterday approved a West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection deal with Freedom Industries that sets aside $2.5 million to cover the costs of a yet-to-be-designed final cleanup plan for the site of the January 2014 chemical spill that contaminated drinking water supplies for hundreds of thousands of people across the Kanawha Valley and surrounding communities, the <em>Charleston Gazette</em> reported today. Judge Pearson entered a five-page order that approved the DEP-Freedom settlement, contingent upon the filing with the court of details of the hiring of a new consultant to handle remediation work at the company’s Etowah Terminal on the Elk River, just 1.5 miles upstream from West Virginia American Water’s regional drinking water intake. At the same time, officials have confirmed that Freedom chief restructuring officer Mark Welch’s plan to dispose of contaminated soil from the site at the Charleston city landfill has been approved by both DEP and by Waste Management Inc., which operates the landfill for the city.
