Portland, Maine, Company Takes on Cleanup Risks for Big Manufacturers.

Byline: Tux Turkel

Mar. 26--Old steel mills don't tend to be very clean workplaces. And when the former Norfolk Steel Co. in Chesapeake, Va., was closed in 1986, its owner found that lingering pollution and the uncertain cost of removing it made the property nearly impossible to sell.

So in 1997, then-owner Birmingham Steel made an unusual move: It transferred the risks and financial liability of the cleanup to a new, little-known company in Portland called Emsource Inc.

For $2 million, Emsource legally released Birmingham Steel from any liability, backed up this indemnity with an insurance policy, dealt with state regulators and lined up contractors who treated lead-contaminated soil and took metal debris to a special landfill.

That was the first deal for Emsource, which officially finished cleaning the site last year.

Last week, Emsource announced that it had completed its largest environmental risk transfer -- a $10 million transaction to acquire several liabilities from a manufacturer that owns polluted factory and dump sites around the country. The unnamed company is getting out of the manufacturing business and wants to sell its ...