East Alton Mayor Fred Bright and Brad Lakin Announce $8 Million Settlement With Oil Companies

Money will create an infrastructure improvement fund for the Village

Mayor Fred Bright of The Village of East Alton and Brad Lakin, now of LakinChapman, announced an $8 million settlement with a group of oil companies that have historically operated gas retail stations, refineries or chemical plants in the area.

The lawsuit resulted from MTBE contamination in one of the Village's water supply wells. MTBE is a common additive to U.S. gasoline that enhances octane levels. MTBE was introduced in 1979 as an alternative to lead in gasoline.

Brad Lakin said, "This is a fair and reasonable settlement that will compensate the Village for the cost of cleaning that well and restoring it to service for the community and provide a fund for the Village to use in the future."

Mayor Fred Bright said, "Our intention is to invest this money and utilize the interest from it to pay for infrastructure improvements for the Village well into the future. In this way, this unfortunate incident will be turned into something positive for the community's future."

The Village of East Alton identified MTBE in one of its nine deep water supply wells in 1999. The Village immediately shut down that well and has operated out of its other eight wells since that time.

Mayor Fred Bright said, "We regularly monitor our water supply based on strict state protocols. When we identified MTBE, we acted quickly to protect the health and safety of Village residents by taking this well out of service. Since then, we have been monitoring our other wells on a regular basis to make certain they do not become contaminated, as well. We are nearly finished remediating the contamination in the well, bringing levels to below state safe water requirements. Once the contamination is remediated and the well passes stringent inspections, it will be placed back into service."

Lakin, whose firm brought suit against the oil companies on behalf of the Village of East Alton, said, "This is a major settlement for the people of East Alton. I want to commend Mayor Bright for standing up on behalf of his community and demanding a fair and just settlement of this issue."

The oil companies involved in the settlement are The Premcor Refining Group, Inc. (f/k/a Clark Refining & Marketing, Inc., Conoco, Inc., Tosco Corporation, Shell Oil Company, Shell Oil Products Company, Phillips Petroleum Company, BP Products North America, Inc. (f/k/a Amoco Oil Company), BP Amoco Chemical Company, Union Oil Company of California, UNO-VEN Company, CITGO Petroleum Corporation, and PDV Midwest Refining, LLC.