California Department of Toxic Substances Control v. Lyon (Modesto Groundwater Contamination Superfund Site)
California's Department of Toxic Substances Control secured a $2 million consent-decree settlement from Suzanne Lyon, Russell Tonda, and Diane Tonda -- the current owners of the commercial property at 941 McHenry Avenue in Modesto that housed Halford's Cleaners, a dry-cleaning business operating on the site from roughly 1948 until 2025. DTSC's federal suit alleged decades of discharges of tetrachloroethylene (PCE), a dry-cleaning solvent and known carcinogen, into the soil, contaminating groundwater and nearby sewer lines at the Modesto Groundwater Contamination site, on the EPA's National Priorities List since 1989.
Why it matters
A reminder that CERCLA and its state-law analogues impose strict, largely defense-proof liability on a contaminated property's current owners for cleanup costs tied to a prior tenant's operations, regardless of whether the current owner caused or even knew about the original discharges. Any purchaser or lender considering a commercial property with a legacy dry-cleaning, industrial, or other solvent-using tenant should treat a Phase II environmental assessment and an innocent-landowner or bona fide prospective purchaser defense analysis as essential diligence, not a formality, given how long these liabilities can persist after the contaminating use itself has ended.
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