(The following story by Mark Basch appeared on the Florida Times-Union website on July 22, 2010.)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Jacksonville-based CSX Transportation Inc. reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to pay $11.2 million to clean up a former wood treatment plant site in Desoto County in Southwest Florida.
The plant was used by a predecessor railroad to CSX and has been closed since 1952. CSX said it has already spent $2 million in cleanup costs at the site and the company will spend an estimated $9.2 million more to settle a lawsuit filed by the U.S. government on behalf of the EPA, according to a consent decree posted this month in the Federal Register.
The decree says that no one lives at the site and it “should be classified as ‘no apparent’ public health hazard.”