Landowner Required to Pay $282,000 Civil Penalty

For Failure to Comply With Pollution Abatement Order

Decision Concerns 335 Acres in Willington and Ashford

(HARTFORD) – Attorney General George Jepsen said that Ohio-based Cadlerock Properties Joint Venture, L.P. has been ordered to pay a $282,000 civil penalty for failing to comply with a pollution abatement order issued by the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) in 1997.

The state Appellate Court this week rejected the company’s appeal of that penalty, which stems from its failure to assess and clean up pollution on 335 acres it owns in Willington and Ashford. The company did not contest that it violated the order, but challenged the amount of the penalty.

“This decision is a win for the State and for the people of Connecticut because it puts polluters on notice that we will not back down from enforcing environmental pollution laws, no matter how long it takes,” Attorney General Jepsen said.

DEEP Commissioner Daniel C. Esty said, “The pollution abatement order issued by this agency required Cadlerock to address contamination on its site. In failing to respond to this order, the company allowed the continued existence of a threat to groundwater resources and the public health – behavior that demands the sizeable penalty that has now been upheld by the court.”

Cadlerock, a limited partnership, is not registered to do business in Connecticut. Its principal place of business is Newton Falls, Ohio and its general partner is Cadlerock, Inc., an Ohio corporation. Daniel C. Cadle is the sole shareholder of Cadlerock, Inc. and The Cadle Company.

Cadlerock Properties Joint Venture acquired the Connecticut property from an affiliated entity, Cadle Properties of Connecticut, Inc., which had received a deed in lieu of foreclosure on Sept. 7, 1995 from Ashford Development Co.

On Aug. 15, 1997, DEEP issued a pollution abatement order against the company, which required, in part, that the company hire an environmental consultant to investigate the existing and potential extent and degree of soil, ground water and surface water pollution. The company appealed and the order was affirmed by the Connecticut Supreme Court on July 18, 2000.

After the company failed to comply with the terms of the final order, the Office of the Attorney General, on behalf of DEEP, brought an enforcement action in September, 2007. The Appellate Court found that the trial court’s penalty was appropriate since “there are sufficient financial resources readily available to the defendant and that the decision whether to expend those financial resources is controlled by [Daniel] Cadle and his affilitated entities.”

In a related case, the Appellate Court found that the remediation order did not deprive the owner of its property rights.