The Washington state Department of Transportation has been ordered to pay the federal government almost $9.36 million for clean-up and related expenses due to hazardous substances that got into the environment during construction projects.
The action has implications for those in the design-build industry.
The judge said WDOT is liable because the agency was an “arranger” of hazardous substances because it designed, built, owns and operates highways and a stormwater drainage system that emptied untreated, polluted stormwater into Tacoma’s Thea Foss Waterway/Commencement Bay. That is now on the Superfund list.
