A lawsuit first filed in January asks a a federal judge to force PPG Industries Inc. to comply with a 2009 state order that it monitor and collect seepage from covered waste lagoons, used from 1950 to 1970 to hold waste from its Ford City manufacturing plant.
PennEnvironment of Philadelphia and Sierra Club of San Francisco have re-filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to force PPG Industries Inc. to comply with a 2009 state order that it monitor and collect seepage from covered waste lagoons at a 150-acre dump site in Armstrong County.
The lawsuit names PPG and Ford City as defendants but the groups are not seeking damages from the borough. The site is owned by Ford City but sits in Cadogan and North Buffalo.
PPG used the lagoons from 1950 to 1970 to hold waste from its Ford City manufacturing plant on the other side of the Allegheny River, the lawsuit says.
The highly corrosive slurry contains arsenic, lead, antimony and other metals and is leaking through the surrounding rocks into the river, the lawsuit says.
The groups originally sued in January but withdrew the complaint because they failed to give a required 60-day notice to one person affected by the lawsuit, said PennEnvironment spokeswoman Erika Staaf. The allegations in the new lawsuit are the same as those in the original complaint, she said.
A PPG spokesman declined comment.