U.S. says AVX lacks proof military contributed to contamination

AVX Corp. has no proof that the military contributed to environmental contamination in a Myrtle Beach neighborhood, and the electronics manufacturer's claims should be dismissed, the federal government stated in court documents filed this week in Florence.

Meanwhile, a federal judge has ruled that AVX must turn over more than 1,500 pages of documents related to toxic groundwater contamination at the company's facility along 17th Avenue South. AVX has said it will appeal the ruling.

AVX wants to keep the documents secret, claiming they include protected correspondence about legal and insurance issues, according to company lawyer Kevin Dunlap.

Horry Land Co., which owns land adjacent to AVX, has said the documents will show AVX was operating what amounted to a "landfill and hazardous waste treatment center" just blocks from the oceanfront, according to court documents.

No court date has been set to consider AVX's appeal.

Horry Land Co. - in a court case that now is in its fourth year - is suing AVX over the groundwater contamination, claiming it has ruined property values.

AVX, in turn, is suing Horry Land Co. and the military, saying those adjacent property owners helped pollute the groundwater in a roughly 10-block Myrtle Beach neighborhood.

AVX wants those entities to share in the cleanup costs, estimated at up to $5.5 million in a recent company report.

The groundwater at AVX and the adjacent neighborhood is contaminated with trichloroethylene, or TCE, a degreaser that AVX used at its Myrtle Beach facility between 1953 and 1986.

AVX has said in court documents that the military contributed to the contamination because it also spilled large amounts of TCE into groundwater at the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base. AVX says some of that TCE could have migrated to the neighborhood's groundwater.

Bill Nettles, the U.S. attorney for South Carolina, said in court documents this week that AVX has offered no evidence that the military contributed to the pollution despite repeated requests for such documentation.

Nettles has asked a judge to dismiss the manufacturer's claims against the military.

The court documents Nettles filed show AVX used "substantial amounts" of TCE for more than three decades - as much as 465 tons of the degreaser per year - at its 17th Avenue South facility before discontinuing its use in 1986 because of health concerns.

The documents include a 1995 report by an AVX consultant that blames the manufacturer for the TCE pollution on its property. That consultant did not say any other entity was responsible.

"AVX's own consultants determined that past material-handling practices and/or leaks from the former underground TCE storage tanks [including associated piping] caused the groundwater contamination" that eventually migrated to the neighborhood, Nettles said in court documents.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control also has said AVX is entirely responsible for the contamination.

"I am of the opinion that the [TCE] plume that migrates from the AVX property originates from the AVX property ... from sources at the AVX property," Carol Minsk, a DHEC hydrogeologist overseeing cleanup efforts, said in a deposition this year.

Dick Souza, former environmental coordinator for the Air Force base, which closed in 1993, said in a separate deposition that he is not aware of any TCE that could have migrated from the base to property near AVX.

Souza has told The Sun News that the military did not use TCE on land near AVX, and groundwater at the sites where the degreaser was used by the Air Force flows away from the manufacturer, not toward it.

There is no court date scheduled to hear Nettles' request to dismiss the manufacturer's claims against the military. The AVX case is scheduled to go to a jury trial starting in February.

In addition to the federal lawsuit, AVX is being sued in state court by property owners near the 17th Avenue South facility who say the contamination has ruined property values.

A class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of about 200 property owners, and a separate lawsuit has been filed by a developer who planned to build condos near the AVX site. Both of those lawsuits are pending.

AVX learned in 1981 that it had polluted groundwater at its facility with TCE, which causes a variety of health problems, including cancer. The manufacturer tried unsuccessfully for 14 years to clean up the pollution before reporting it to state regulators.

DHEC discovered in 2006 that the pollution had spread through groundwater to surrounding properties.

The groundwater is not used as a drinking water source. However, the federal government requires the groundwater to be cleaned to drinking water standards, which allow TCE at concentrations of no more than five parts per billion.

TCE levels as high as 18,200 parts per billion have been recorded in groundwater near the AVX site.

AVX, which has been paying for studies to determine the best way to clean up the pollution, expects to start that cleanup process early next year.

AVX, which makes capacitors that are used in electronic equipment, moved its headquarters last year from Myrtle Beach to Greenville.