Lawyers for Kanawha Valley residents and businesses pressed Thursday for some action to free up $3 million in Freedom Industries insurance money, a move they said they hope will help compensate victims of the January 2014 Elk River chemical leak and allow attorneys to begin pursuing other litigation over the leak.

About 20 lawyers representing various groups of leak victims said they want the companys insurance payment so that money can be split among their clients right away.

Nitro lawyer Harvey Peyton said he has clients who are small businesses that lost what to them were significant sums of money because of the Freedom leak and the resulting water crisis.

Weve wasted a year now, waiting for this to be resolved, Peyton said. We just cant wait any longer.

Peyton was among the lawyers who turned out for a court-sponsored meeting in which Charleston lawyer Jim Lane, a court-appointed claims manager in the Freedom bankruptcy, was trying to gather views from various parties to assist U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ronald Pearson in finding a way to resolve the bankruptcy proceeding.

With no clear plan for bringing the case to a close, Pearson set up but did not attend Thursdays meeting at the federal courthouse. Pearson has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday to hear a report from Lane and consider proposals for a path forward.

In a memo distributed at Thursdays meeting, Lane noted that Freedom has about $1.5 million in the bank but owes lawyers and environmental services professionals $3.2 million for work performed since the company declared bankruptcy. Freedom also owes various vendors and other parties about $6 million in pre-bankruptcy bills and 3,800 claims filed against Freedom over the chemical leak total about $200 million, Lane said in the memo.

Charleston lawyer Bill DePaulo questioned when someone involved in the bankruptcy perhaps the appointed committee of Freedoms creditors would begin pursuing investigations and potential lawsuits to recover more money for the bankruptcy estate, perhaps from former corporate owners and managers, some of whom are now facing criminal charges.

If part of the judges question is how do we cut the pie, another question is how big is the pie? DePaulo said. We need to be aggressively pursuing assets.

So far, no legal actions on behalf of the bankruptcy estate or creditors have been take concerning potentially fraudulent transfers of Freedoms funds or against former company officials over their management of the Elk River chemical operation. Such actions have basically been frozen for months, with the courts informal approval, while officials focused on cleanup of the Freedom facility, located just upstream from the regional drinking-water intake. Criminal charges filed against at least one former Freedom official Gary Southern allege that Southern tried to cover up his role at the company to protect his personal wealth from the bankruptcy case and civil lawsuits filed over the chemical leak.

See more here:

Attorneys in Freedom Industries bankruptcy: 'We just can't wait any longer'