The Port of Vancouver and the insurer of Cadet Manufacturing Tuesday reached a $14 million settlement that ends nearly eight years of litigation over liability for environmental cleanup of the 11-acre electric heater production site.
At a special meeting Tuesday, port commissioners authorized Executive Director Larry Paulson to pursue finalization of the settlement with Granite State Insurance Co., a subsidiary of American International Group, Inc. The announcement comes after May’s $10 million settlement with Cadet’s two other insurance carriers that also gave the port ownership of the site and made it responsible for cleanup of the contaminated land.
In 1997, trichloroethylene (TCE), a cleaning solvent used industrially until the 1980s, was found to have impacted soil and groundwater at the Cadet site and at the former site of Swan Manufacturing Co. Swan was a baseboard heater manufacturer and corporate predecessor to Cadet, which occupied 0.88 acres from 1956 to 1964 and was identified as a source of TCE contamination.
The May settlement allowed Cadet to continue operating its manufacturing plant, which employs 100 people, as a tenant of the port. The company has signed a five-year lease there, with two additional five-year options.
The port continues to work with the Department of Ecology to clean up the contaminated area. To date, the port has spent over $13.5 million on this clean up project, with approximately $3.4 million paid for by DOE grants. The Port estimates an additional $22 million to complete the cleanup projects at both the Swan and Cadet sites. Cadet has installed a treatment system at its plant site, in addition to treatment devices in the surrounding area.
-Megan Patrick
