Can't discuss anymore than that...
JS-Online After 33 days of trial, a jury has ruled that a carcinogen that leaked from Waste Management Inc.'s closed Muskego Sanitary Landfill could not be linked to any problems with wells providing water to surrounding property owners.
The property owners were seeking unspecified millions in damages from Waste Management and other entities believed to have dumped toxic waste at the landfill in the mid-1950s in a trial before Waukesha County Circuit Judge Kathryn Foster. If the case is reversed on appeal, the 16-person jury awarded the group of property owners more than $1 million.
The trial was launched with dramatic testimony on the dangers of vinyl chloride to people, followed by the account of a young mother unable to enjoy some time with her newborn because contaminated well water prevented her from bathing the baby at home.
State and federal officials have repeatedly contended outside of the trial that the level of vinyl chloride detected in private wells is low and that none has been found in city drinking water.
Larry Buechel, former Waste Management project director of the Muskego landfill cleanup, testified that when he learned in 1997 of a private well to the south that was contaminated, he wasn't sure there was even a "clear pathway" for vinyl chloride to get there from the landfill, which closed in 1980.
Defense attorneys for Waste Management argued before the jury that the company was responsive and did everything it could at the time to investigate and mitigate well contaminations, with the tools it had available at the time.
Those actions included supplying bottled water and ultimately bringing city water to the affected properties, although the company could not determine where the pollutants originated.
Much of the pollution was discovered by Waste Management's own engineers, a defense attorney told jurors.
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