The oldest pending federal court case in Maine is one step closer to resolution.
More than 20 years ago, the National Resources Defense Council and the Maine People’s Alliance sued Mallinckrodt US LLC of Delaware, the former owner of a chemical plant in Orrington, over mercury contamination along the Penobscot River. This past week, the parties agreed to a proposed consent decree under which Mallinckrodt US would pay more than $260 million for the cleanup of an estuary on the river.
Cleanup could include removing or capping contaminated sediment from the river and long-term monitoring of the area.
The settlement, filed in U.S. District Court in Bangor, would end the two-decade battle over contamination that took place from the late 1960s to the early 2000s.