Polluters stick taxpayers with multimillion dollar clean-up bill

"State officials in Missouri talked tough with previous owners of a polluted site, but when it came time to do the cleanup, Missouri taxpayers were stuck with almost the entire bill--$12 million--, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigation has found."

"In addition to not holding the polluters to account, the state and city allowed a single firm to award most of the remediation work to itself without competitive bidding."