The Prospective Purchaser Agreement (PPA) with the Portland Development Commission (PDC), along with a consent decree between the United States and the Site owner, Mr. Erwin Grant (Grant), will resolve ongoing litigation between the United States and Grant, and will allow PDC to purchase the property for its appraised value of $177,000.00, complete remediation of the property, and then redevelop the property in a low-income, environmental justice community in northeast Portland. The Site property is located at 3368 N.E. Martin Luther King Boulevard in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon (the Site).
The CD resolves claims EPA has for Past Response Costs EPA incurred at the Site from November 1998 to February 1999 in conducting a time-critical removal action at the Site. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint on November 9, 2000 against Grant personally and against the Site property in rem. DOJ then filed a motion for summary judgment on May 11, 2001, which was then subsequently withdrawn by DOJ on December 14, 2001, due to litigation risks and disclosure issues related to the CET Environmental billing issues, discussed in the litigative risks section below. DOJ then refiled the summary judgment motion. Grant and the real property defendant also moved for summary judgment, and on December 20, 2002, the Court dismissed Erwin Grant (and Ken Grant as conservator of the estate of Erwin Grant - see below) from the case, but allowed the case to continue against the