By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
The U.S. government has agreed to pay Guam another $15 million to fully settle a long-running dispute over the astronomical costs incurred by the territory for the cleanup and eventual shutdown of the infamous Ordot dump.
Judge Jia M. Cobb of the U.S. District Court of Columbia, has approved the new settlement amount sealed through the second consent decree negotiated between the U.S. Department of Justice and the government of Guam.
Cobb entered the second consent decree as a final judgment on Oct. 2, capping the territory’s $160 million lawsuit against the federal government under the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act.
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 contaminations caused by Ordot dump.
The U.S. and the government of Guam struck a new deal established under the second consent decree “to have a full and final resolution” of any other pertinent claims and “to avoid the complication and expense of further litigation of such claims.”
“The United States and Guam do not admit any liability arising out of the transactions or occurrences alleged in this matter,” states the new consent decree that bars any “further litigation.”
Ironically, 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 federal receivership that cost the government of Guam more than $200 million, which triggered the territory to borrow on the bond market.
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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 such as unexploded ordnance and leachate discharge.
The $42-million Ordot dump closure project was completed by Black Construction Co. in 2011.
The court gave the U.S. government 120 days from entry of judgment to transfer $15 million to GovGuam's legal counsel, Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, "which shall resolve the United States' alleged liability."
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