T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Bridgeport Law Director Michael Shaheen displays the two checks the village recently received from a national class action lawsuit regarding “forever chemicals" in the village’s water wells.

BRIDGEPORT – The village of Bridgeport has received a six-figure settlement check from a nationwide class action lawsuit filed three years ago.

The two checks that added up to be $107,882 were sent by BASF and Tyco, two of the four companies that were 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.

As a result, the village now purchases water from the city of Martins Ferry to provide to its roughly 1,600 residents and to its water customers, including the village of Brookside.

BASF paid the village $31,610, with Tyco paying $75,972.

DuPont and 3M are the other two companies involved in the lawsuit. In July the village received a check in the amount of $131,803 from 3M. This past September, the village received $306,660 from DuPont.

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

Bridgeport Village Solicitor Michael Shaheen worked with a law firm in Louisiana — Cossich, Sumich, Parsiola & Taylor LLC – which served as lead counsel on the class action lawsuit.

Despite the settlement being well over $1 million, Shaheen said that there will be fees to the national firms so he isn’t exactly sure the amount the village will receive after fees.

“We’re at about the point where we should be emerging from the fiscal emergency that we’ve been under the oversight committee for six years, plus,” Shaheen said. “It’s taken a lot of work from a lot of departments and a lot of people.”

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.

“We have not spent any money out of those funds,” Shaheen said. “We will be receiving a fair amount more, but it’ll be spread over the next few years from the original defendants. The village administrator [Jesse Kosegi] announced that in working with the police department, it received a grant to help with its evidence room.”

The village’s police department recently received a $23,195 grant through the Ohio Collaborative Law Enforcement Accreditation Program to modernize its evidence room. In addition to the funds received, Shaheen said that the village will receive a fair amount more settlement money that will be spread over the next few years.

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