New Settlement to Clean Contaminated Rhode Island Soil

A settlement requiring Southern Union to clean up contaminated soil in a Tiverton, Rhode Island neighborhood appears back on track.

An agreement reported last year by lawyers for town residents appeared in limbo for months after Southern Union said it had never agreed to the deal.

But W. Michael Sullivan, director of the state Department of Environmental Management, told The Associated Press Tuesday that all parties in the lawsuit have resolved their differences.

The original agreement, valued at $12 million, required Southern Union to pay for the cleanup of more than 100 properties, where arsenic and other contaminants had turned the soil blue. The value of the new agreement was not immediately known.

Lawyers for the neighbors and Southern Union declined to comment.