Court OKs Ordot case settlement deal obligating GovGuam to pay feds $3.9M

By Mar-Vic Cagurangan

A federal judge has approved a consent decree requiring the government of Guam to pay the Environmental Protection Agency $3.9 million for the recovery of costs incurred by the federal government for "responding to the release of hazardous substances” at the now-closed Ordot dump.

Judge Jia M. Cobb of the District of Columbia federal court also approved $17,745.53 in accrued interest assessed by the U.S. government.

The new consent decree, approved on July 17, is the third in a series of settlement agreements addressing GovGuam’s and the federal government’s claims and counterclaims related to the island's problematic solid waste management.

The court's action capped Guam’s $160 million lawsuit against the federal government under the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, seeking to settle a long-running dispute over the astronomical costs incurred by the territory for the cleanup and eventual shutdown of the infamous Ordot dump.

ADVERTISEMENT

The first consent decree, approved by the federal court on Sept. 25, 2023, obligated the U.S. to pay Guam $48.9 million, partially resolving “any and all claims for past response costs incurred prior to Aug. 10, 2022” related to any contamination caused by the Ordot dump.

This was followed by another federal government payment of $15 million to GovGuam based on a deal sealed on Oct. 2, 2024.

The latest $3.9 million price tag was the result of the federal government’s counterclaim filed in January this year.

GovGuam is required to pay the amount within five days of the consent decree’s approval.

The U.S. government and GovGuam agreed to settle "without the admission or adjudication of any issue" to avoid prolonged and complicated litigation.

The settlement is "fair, reasonable, in the public interest and consistent with CERCLA," Adam Gustafson and Peter Krzywicki, attorneys for the federal government, stated in their court filing.

The agreement was preceded by a series of lawsuits and counter-lawsuits spanning more than two decades over the old landfill built by the U.S. Navy.

The closure of the Ordot dump was part of a previous consent decree sparked by the U.S. government’s Clean Water Act lawsuit against Guam in 2002, in which the territory was mandated to take corrective action on the 280-foot mountain of trash in Ordot.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Ordot dump “posed an ecological hazard.”

The U.S. government’s lawsuit resulted in a federal receivership that cost the government of Guam more than $200 million, triggering the territory to borrow on the bond market.

In 2017, the government of Guam filed a counter-action against the U.S. government for cost-recovery under the CERLA, arguing that the Ordot dump was the U.S. Navy’s own creation that later exposed the territory to EPA's legal actions.

The local government pointed out that the Navy built the dump during the 1940s and deposited toxic military waste there before turning over control to Guam in 1950.

In May 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Guam, holding that, “Remaining within the bounds of CERLA is also consistent with the familiar principle that a federal contribution action is virtually always a creature of a specific statutory regime.”

The federal receivership based on the 2010 consent decree ended in 2019 and a new landfill was constructed in Dandan.

Situated on a 63-acre property, the Ordot dump had been the sole disposal facility for Guam’s waste since the 1940s. Inspections by the contractor, Brown and Caldwell, found undocumented materials, including unexploded ordnance and leachate discharge.

The $42-million Ordot dump closure project was completed by Black Construction Co. in 2011.

Subscribe to

our digital

monthly edition