Asarco to pay for smelter, mine cleanup

TACOMA — Asarco will pay $200 million to clean up toxic contamination from its operations in Washington, including its former smelter in Ruston.

The News Tribune reported Sunday the agreement is part of Asarco's effort to emerge from bankruptcy.

The newspaper said more than half of that amount, $122.6 million, will go to the state and the federal Environmental Protection Agency for work in neighborhoods around the smelter site and in three counties.

In Pierce, King and Thurston counties, fallout from a plume of arsenic, lead and other heavy metals from the smelter settled on 1,000 square miles.

The remainder of the $200 million will cover cleanup at B&L Woodwaste in Milton, where slag from the smelter was dumped; at four Asarco mine sites; and at a smaller smelter site in Everett the company once operated.

The newspaper said the company's plan to reorganize and emerge from bankruptcy filed in a Texas bankruptcy court in late July provided additional details of Asarco's proposals to meet its environmental obligations in Washington state. A general outline of those proposals was previously known.

Overall, the century-old mining and smelting company plans to pay off its major secured creditors and provide nearly $2.4 billion to settle roughly $9 billion in environmental and asbestos-related claims.

The bankruptcy is considered the largest environmental-related and one of the most complicated bankruptcies ever, involving dozens of sites nationwide. Those include 20 federal Superfund sites and 95,000 asbestos-related claims.

In Olympia, state officials said they were satisfied with Asarco's reorganization plan.

"We think it is very reasonable," said Elliott Furst, a senior council on the ecology division of the Washington state Attorney General's Office.

The state initially filed $600 million in claims with the bankruptcy court, including about $300 million related to the Ruston smelter. Asarco ran the smelter for about 100 years before it was shut down in 1985. The smelter, along with its 562-foot smokestack, has been torn down. Part of the site is being developed.

Furst said the state's initial claim was a "rough estimate."

Asarco Chief Executive Officer Joseph Lepinsky said: "While we still need court approval of our plan, we believe the end of this complex bankruptcy is finally in sight."