Westport Management has spent more than $500,000 cleaning up hazardous wastes at an industrial site in Maybrook, New York, and now it wants its tenants to foot the bills.
Westport Management sued Osram Sylvania Products Inc., Sklar Purchasing Corp. and Quality Bus Sales and Services Inc. in federal court in White Plains to cover the cost of the cleanup.
Westport acquired the building at 201 Charles St. in 2005, the Newburgh company said, but never conducted business there.
Two years ago, it discovered that chlorinated solvents had contaminated the soil and groundwater. The chemicals are used as cleaning and degreasing agents, the complaint states, by industries that make or maintain metal components.
The lawsuit cites three such businesses.
Sklar Manufacturing Co. made metal surgical instruments there from the 1970s to 1980s, the complaint says. Sklar went out of business but its assets and liabilities were bought by Sklar Purchasing Corp., West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Osram, based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, manufactured lighting products at the site from the mid-1980s to 2005.
Quality Bus of Ballston Spa, manufactured, repaired and maintained buses there from 2006 through 2016.
Westport says it believes all three companies used chlorinated solvents at the Charles Street site.
Attempts to reach the companies for responses were unsuccessful.
Westport says it remediated the site under a plan approved by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. It has spent more than $500,000 so far, and the cleanup is ongoing.
It is suing the tenants under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act and state nuisance law.
Westport demands that the former tenants share cleanup costs that have been incurred and pay for future costs of cleaning up hazardous substances at the site.
