FREETOWN, Mass. (AP) – A judge’s order forcing Freetown to pay $3.2 million to a disposal company and the owner of a dump site could force the cash-strapped town into bankruptcy, a member of the select board says. Judge Richard T. Moses ordered the town to pay the money to K.R. Rezendes Inc. and the owner of a coal ash dump site in town after the town was found liable for an illegal cease-and-desist order the Board of Health issued to stop the dumping.

“It’s just an amount of money that we cannot afford to pay,” selectman Lawrence Ashley told the Standard-Times of New Bedford.

Selectman John Laronda Jr. said the ruling could actually be good news for the town. The town could not appeal the 2001 ruling against the cease-and-desist order until the damage findings were handed down, he said. “We can appeal and argue against that decision now,” he said.

If the town cannot successfully appeal, Ashley said he will “seriously suggest to the board that we put the town into bankruptcy.”

K.R. Rezendes hauled coal ash, a byproduct of coal combustion for electricity, from power plants in Somerset and Salem, to a site in Freetown for 25 years. Each year, the company brought in more than 200,000 tons of ash.

When the company started dumping the ash at a new site in town in 2000, the select board ordered a stop to the dumping, citing health concerns. Scientists hired by K.R. Rezendes and Pacific Gas & Electric said the ash posed no public health risk.

AP-ES-05-28-05 1824EDT