T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Bridgeport Mayor Norma Teasdale, on left, receives a $306,660 check presented to her by Law director Michael Shaheen from a class action lawsuit the village won in 2020.

BRIDGEPORT — Bridgeport Village Council received its second check from a nationwide class action lawsuit filed three years ago.

Law Director Michael Shaheen presented council a check for $306,660 during Tuesday evening’s meeting.

DuPont, 3M, BASF and Tyco were all sued after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency discovered that two of the village’s five drinking water wells had been contaminated with a high level of Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substance in 2020.

Shaheen said that PFAs are called “forever chemicals” because it is virtually impossible to be removed from the wells.

“I got connected with these environmental lawyers, and obviously our water was tainted, and PFAs are what they call permanent poisons or permanent chemicals, and you can’t get rid of them,” Shaheen said. “So I got us in the litigation. We were one of the leads and it was municipalities all over the country.”

Shaheen worked with a law firm in Louisiana — Cossich, Sumich, Parsiola & Taylor LLC – which served as lead counsel on the class action lawsuit. He added that although this is the second check the village received from the lawsuit this is the first and only check it will receive from DuPont.

He expects the gross after all checks are sent to the village to be well over $1 million. He added that there will be fees to the national firms so he isn’t sure exactly what amount the village will receive.

3M was ordered to pay more than $1billion, so it was allowed to have a structured payment. DuPont, BASF, and Tyco were ordered to pay one lump sum to the village.

“It’s a big deal for us,” Shaheen said.

This past July the village received a check in the amount of $131,803.39 from 3M.

Settlement funds from Tyco and BASF will also be received less than a year from now, but Shaheen believes both will be much less than both the 3M and DuPoint checks.

He previously said that there are no restrictions on how the money can be used, in part because $1 million would not be enough for the village to replace its water system.

Shaheen then thanked Village Administrator Jesse Kosegi for the rigorous hours of work he put in to ensure the village received the money it deserved.

“Without his help, we would have never been able to determine what we were entitled to,” Shaheen said. “It required a bunch of readings and some historical data, and he was absolutely wonderful about doing that.”

Council also swore in a new police Sgt. William Timko to the village’s department. Timko was sworn in with his wife Brandi Timko by his side.

After he was sworn in, council then passed a resolution to give police Officer Nicholas Bumba a promotion to full-time officer. The promotion was recommended by Mayor Norma Teasdale and Police Chief John Bumba.