The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week ordered fourteen companies to finance and carry out the agency's interim plan to clean up hazardous waste at the Liberty Industrial Finishing Site, Farmingdale.

Since May, agency officials said, they had been trying to persuade the companies, primarily present and former owners and operators at the property, to conduct the cleanup voluntarily. However, these negotiations were unsuccessful, which compelled them to issue the order, known as an EPA Superfund Unilateral Order.

"It's one of the tools in our arsenal," Rich Cahill, an EPA spokesperson, said upon the agency's announcement of the action Tuesday.

"We are taking this legal action because we have been unable to reach a consensual agreement with the responsible parties on the terms of the cleanup," EPA Regional Administrator Jeanne M. Fox stated in a release to the press. "The interim cleanup action will address the most significant groundwater contamination at the site, while EPA continues to develop options for a long-term comprehensive soil and groundwater cleanup."

The EPA is labeling the cleanup as an "interim" action because it will be used to stop further spreading of contamination in and around the site while the agency comes up with a comprehensive, long-term cleanup solution. The interim action will involve the installation of a hydraulic system and innovative technologies for the below ground removal of both chemical and heavy metal contaminants. The agency is also prepared to implement a back-up plan if environmental tests show this approach is not effective in cleaning up the groundwater. The second, more expensive, plan calls for a conventional above-ground system that would extract and treat the contaminated groundwater. According to EPA estimates, the first and second plans would could cost approximately $1.9 million and $4 million, respectively, to carry out.

The EPA first announced the interim cleanup plan in January, and had anticipated that it would be operational by the end of the year. However, now it seems the unsuccessful negotiations with the PRPs will delay the work schedule by a few months, according to Lorenzo Thantu, an EPA project manager.

The delay is only the latest in a years-long wait by concerned local community members for a far-reaching cleanup. Contamination at the 30-acre industrial park, which is adjacent to Allen Park on Motor Ave, and is surrounded by residential neighborhoods, was first discovered in 1984. Liberty was previously the site of various industrial operations, such as defense manufacturing and metal plating and finishing. The site was placed on the Superfund National Priorities List in 1986, and the EPA began oversight there in 1990. There have been ongoing environmental investigations and individual cleanup actions there, which have already cost some of the PRPs hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, the EPA has yet to come up with a comprehensive cleanup plan that will both be one that the PRPs will agree to fund, and satisfy local community members. Community concerns stem from EPA reports of high levels of heavy metals and volatile organic chemicals emanating from the site.

According to George Shanahan, an attorney for the EPA, there are two ways the agency can force the PRPs to pay for the interim cleanup if they do not comply with the recently issued Superfund Unilateral Order. One way would be to commence a legal action in federal district court to enforce the order. If the court determines that the PRPs violated the order without sufficient cause, they would be subject to penalties of $25,000 per day, he said.

The EPA's other alternative would be to carry out the work on its own, using money allocated by the federal Superfund. The agency would then sue the PRPs to recover the costs. If the EPA is victorious in this court case, the PRPs will be forced to reimburse the government, as well as be subject to penalties up to three times the amount the government spent, according to Shanahan.