WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — A vacant lot that was once the site of a dry cleaning business in White River Junction and has been leaching pollutants into the neighborhood will finally begin an environmental cleanup process after more than a decade of legal wrangling, under a settlement reached between the state and the property’s owner.

The Vermont Attorney General’s office announced on Monday that it reached a $2.4 million agreement with the owner of the former dry cleaning site that calls for the state’s Agency of Natural Resources to “assess appropriate remedial measures” and “implement corrective action” at the lot, which is located in a mixed residential and business neighborhood a block from the intersections of routes 5 and 14.

The site, which is currently utilized as parking for tow vehicles and large commercial trucks, has been warily eyed by neighbors for years due to hazardous chemicals used by the former dry cleaner business. The substances have been leaching through the ground and into the basements of neighboring properties.

“This settlement agreement ensures that the necessary remediation will be completed by the Agency of Natural Resources and that the responsible party will bear the cost,” Charity Clark, Vermont’s attorney general, said in Monday’s news release.

The site, at the southeast corner of Union and Hazen streets, was the location of Parkway Cleaners, which operated from about 1977 until it closed in 1995. It has been known to be contaminated since 1989 when testing found the presence of tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, a solvent that was commonly used in dry cleaning until it was tied to causing cancer.

In 1996, further air testing in a neighboring home revealed PCE levels that exceeded limits recommended by state health regulators.

Air purification systems were subsequently installed by the state in the basements of about nine homes near the site, and then in early 2000s, after prodding by a citizen action group, the state installed sub-slab depressurization systems in the affected homes to divert soil gas vapors by venting the air through exhaust pipes from inside the basement to outside the homes.

Although the PCE contamination was caused by the dry cleaners when it operated under prior owners, in 2010 the state sued the property’s subsequent owner, Richard Daniels and a company he controlled, Hazen Street Holdings, alleging liability for release of the chemicals. That began a years-long court battle in both Vermont and New Hampshire, which continued after Daniels died in 2021 as the state pressed its claim against the estate to ensure that the remediation that had begun under Daniels was completed.

The Agency of Natural Resources “will be handling the remediation going forward” by first “completing a site investigation to finish determining the scope and extent of contamination,” Lauren Jandl, chief of staff for the Vermont Attorney General, said in an email to the Valley News.

That will be followed by “corrective actions as necessary to protect human health and the environment,” said Jandl, who added the ANR “anticipates holding public meetings and reaching out to impacted homeowners to address questions about the investigation and remediation.”

Julie Lyford, Daniels’ daughter and executor of his estate, said her father had been taking the first steps toward remediation of the property as ordered by the courts but his death had had interrupted the work.

“This was not his doing,” said Lyford, who called the contamination a “terrible tragedy” and said the family decided to settle with the state “in order to put this behind us, we’re all just trying to get past this.”

Residents along Hazen Street whose homes have been outfitted with the systems to capture and vent the gas leaching through the ground said they have learned to live with the knowledge that they live atop a potentially hazardous plume.

Airelynn Owens, who lives with her husband Jeff Owens across the street from where the dry cleaning business was located, said the site was overgrown with brush and weeds and “looked like Chernobyl” when they moved into their place 13 years ago.

“It looked like something out of a horror movie,” she said, before the lot was paved over.

Jeff Owens said they have seen work crews taking soil samples but they are in the dark as to the level of contamination since no one has provided any information.

“We’re concerned. We’d like to know what the results are,” he said.

Two doors to the east on Hazen Street, Brad Williams said he and his wife purchased their home six years ago, but it was not until a year later when talking with a neighbor that they learned about the contamination.

“I thought that pipe was for radon,” Williams said of the venting system and meter attached to his house. He said the lack of any disclosure about the health hazard “doesn’t seem right” but the seller of the property “disappeared” and was too much trouble to track them down.

But as a result, Williams said has been taking precaution by using raised bed to grow vegetables and not planting directly in the earth.

“We don’t want to eat anything coming out of that ground,” he said.

Contact John Lippman at jlippman@vnews.com.