Navy to pay R.I. $1.4 million to settle pollution lawsuit

Jan. 13 -- The U.S. Navy will pay more than $1.4 million to the state of Rhode Island to settle a lawsuit that claimed the Navy polluted land and water in North Kingston, R.I., with toxic chemicals.

Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch and the state Department of Environmental Management announced Jan. 12 that the state had settled two lawsuits filed in 2003 to recover monetary damages for injuries to groundwater, wetlands, and shellfish resources. The lawsuits, filed in a federal court, alleged violations of the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act stemming from the past disposal of hazardous substances at the Allen Harbor Landfill and Calf Pasture Point, two former Navy-owned sites at the Naval Construction Battalion Center in North Kingston.

"With regard to Allen Harbor, the term landfill is nothing more than a convenient label for acreage used by the Navy to dispose of more than 3 million gallons of hazardous substances over the course of 25 years - a toxic dumping ground standing with its feet in the water," Lynch said. "As a result of the Navy´s behavior, the state lost the use of Allen Harbor as a shellfishery and lost the use of the groundwater beneath the site."

The Navy owned and operated the landfill and Calf Pasture Point from 1939 to 2001.

The Navy used the landfill site for disposal of municipal waste, construction and demolition debris, rubble, preservatives, paint thinners, solvents, PCB-contaminated oil, asbestos, ash, sewage sludge and waste fuel oil. The Navy also burned various types of waste and covered the site with soil.

In 1984, Allen Harbor was closed to shellfishing because of contamination flowing from the landfill.