A Colorado-based solar company that got hundreds of millions of dollars in federal loan guarantees before going belly-up didn't just empty taxpayers' wallets - it left behind a toxic mess of carcinogens, broken glass and contaminated water, according to a new report.
The Abound Solar plant, which got $400 million in federal loan guarantees in 2010, when the Obama administration sought to use stimulus funds to promote green energy, filed for bankruptcy two years later. Now its Longmont, Colo., facility sits unoccupied, its 37,000 square feet littered with hazardous waste, broken glass and contaminated water. The Northern Colorado Business Report estimates
it will cost up to $3.7 million to clean and repair the building so it can again be leased.
it will cost up to $3.7 million to clean and repair the building so it can again be leased.
“As lawyers, regulators, bankruptcy officials and the landlord spar over the case, the building lies in disrepair, too contaminated to lease,” the report stated.
"If a coal, oil or gas company pulled something like that the EPA would send out SWAT teams and the U.S. Marshals to track down the offenders, bankrupt or not."
- National Legal and Policy Center, a think tank
The owner of the property tried to force a bankruptcy trustee to clean the facility, but the report said it would "place humans at imminent and significant health risk." One of the hazards is the presence of cadmium, a cancer-causing agent that is used to produce the film on the solar panels, the report said.
While the loan guarantees exposed taxpayers to hundreds of millions of dollars, the federal government lost a total of $70 million backing the failed company. Unsold inventory which should have been used to offset those losses, including 2,000 solar panels, mysteriously disappeared, according to theNational Legal and Policy Center.
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