ASARCO bankruptcy settlement will pay for 80 toxic-waste cleanups in up to 20 states

In December, the Justice Department announced the American Smelting and Refining Co. will pay a record $1.79 billion to settle claims for hazardous waste pollution at 80 sites in as many as 20 states. The ruling represents one of the largest environmental bankruptcies in U.S. history, John Burnett of National Public Radio reports. Cleanup at the copper smelter in El Paso, one of ASARCO's most notorious polluters, is scheduled to begin this year.

"A landmark study by the Centers for Disease Control in the early 1970s found that more than half of the children living within a mile of the smelter had levels of lead in their blood four times today's acceptable limit," Burnett reports. Children in Juarez, Mexico, just across the border, were found to have similar blood-lead levels. "We found in these children who seemed to be healthy that they had reduced IQ, slowing of their reflexes, impairment of their motor coordination," Dr. Philip Landrigan, the epidemiologist who led the research nearly 40 years ago, told Burnett. "This was one of the very first demonstrations that lead could cause toxicity on the human brain in children who appeared to have no symptoms." (Read more)

ASARCO toxic industrial sites in Tacoma, Wash., and Omaha, Neb., have been reused for condos, office buildings and a convention center after cleaning. Approximately $1 billion of the settlement goes to the Environmental Protection Agency for cleanup of 26 Superfund sites. Of that $1 billion, $436 million was a cash payment toward future cleanup costs at the Bunker Hill & Metallurgical Complex site in Idaho, the largest "cashout" amount ever for the Superfund enforcement program, EPA reported in a news release.