ENVIRONMENT

Potlatch, Simpson Settle Environmental Suits: Two of 15 companies that California and the federal government sued in June, 1990, under a long-ignored provision of environmental law have entered consent decrees agreeing to pay $12 million. The suits were brought to recover natural-resource damages the governments said began when San Francisco-based Potlatch Corp. began recycling office paper at its Pomona plant in 1971. PCBs used to transfer images in carbonless copy paper were released in sewers, the suits alleged, eventually migrating to Santa Monica Bay. San Francisco-based Simpson Paper Co., which agreed to pay $2.5 million of the total, bought the plant from Potlatch in 1979.