10 YEARS AGO, The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is suing the former landlords of a California city's drycleaning operation to recover $9 million in expenses it says was spent cleaning up perc contamination in the city's groundwater, according to a story in the local newspaper. Filed in March, the lawsuit asks that three families involved with the operation turn over their financial records to reveal how much they could contribute to the cleanup. The EPA also asked the court to levy fines of up to $32,500 per day for ignoring a similar request made in 2005. The EPA's lawsuit is separate from a lawsuit filed by the same city against dozens of drycleaning operations and suppliers in 1998. A jury ordered the defendants in that case to pay the city $178 million for cleanup of the city's groundwater in 2006, but damages were ultimately reduced to $12.7 million.
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