SAN FRANCISCO - Today, the E.P.A. and the U.S. Department of Justice announced the settlement reached with Anadarko and Kerr-McGee is now final, allowing funds to be disbursed for cleanups across the country.
The settlement secures payments of $5.15 billion to resolve claims that the defendants fraudulently transferred assets in part to evade their liability for contamination at toxic sites around the country. Of this total, approximately $4.4 billion will be used to clean the environment. This is the biggest sum ever awarded in this type of a bankruptcy-related environmental settlement with the federal government.
"Communities from the Navajo Nation to Henderson, Nevada are finally getting the backing needed to take crucial steps toward cleaning up toxic legacies that pollute their environment," said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA's Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. "After decades of trying to avoid their environmental responsibilities, Anadarko is today paying billions of dollars to immediately fund these and other critical environmental cleanups."
"This recovery will lead to cleanups across the country that will undo lasting damage to the environment, including contamination of tribal lands, by Kerr-McGee's businesses," said John C. Cruden, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division. "This result emphatically demonstrates the Justice Department's commitment to environmental justice for all Americans, and it fulfills the Department's promise to hold accountable those who pollute and those who try to foist their responsibility for cleanup on the American taxpayer."
An estimated $1.1 billion will be paid to a trust responsible for cleaning up a former chemical manufacturing location in Nevada that led to perchlorate contamination in Lake Mead. The location is located within the Black Mountain Industrial complex near Henderson, Nev. Fifty to 100 pounds of perchlorate are still seeping into Lake Mead every day, and the funds will allow that state's Department of Environmental Protection to clean up the remaining underground sources of contamination.
The Henderson location is the biggest perchlorate groundwater plume in the country. By way of the Las Vegas Wash, the plume has contaminated Lake Mead, which feeds into the Colorado River, a major source of drinking water in the Southwest. Perchlorate, a component in rocket fuel and fireworks, can interfere with the production of thyroid hormones, which are needed for prenatal and postnatal growth and development, as well as for normal metabolism and mental function in adults.
In excess of $985 million is expected to be paid to the U.S. E.P.A. to fund the cleanup of approximately 50 abandoned uranium mines in and around the Navajo Nation, where radioactive waste remains from cold-war era Kerr-McGee mining operations. Additionally, the Navajo Nation is expected to gain In excess of $43 million to address radioactive waste left at the former Kerr-McGee uranium mill in Shiprock, New Mex. The E.P.A. is currently meeting with the Navajo Nation and the State of New Mexico to project work to occur there later in 2015.
Kerr-McGee mined over seven million tons of ore on or near the Navajo Nation from the late 1940s through the 1960s in the Lukachukai area, and from the 1950s to the 1980s in the Eastern and Ambrosia Lake areas. The Kerr-McGee Corporation was founded in 1929 as an energy company involved with oil and gas exploration and production, and uranium mining. The company left abandoned uranium mine sites, including contaminated waste rock piles, in the Lukachukai Mountains of Arizona, the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, and in the Ambrosia Lake/Grants Mining District of New Mexico.
Exposure to uranium and other radioactive elements in soil, dust, air, groundwater and surface water, including waste rock piles and materials used in building structures, poses risks to human health.
In addition to the cleanups in Nevada and on the Navajo Nation, funds are also starting to flow to cleanups across the nation, including sites in Jacksonville, Florida, West Chicago, Illinois, Columbus, Mississippi, and Navassa, North Carolina.
On April 3, 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice announced this settlement, which was then subject to a period of public review and judicial approval. After considering comments from the public, the U.S. sought approval of the settlement, and on November 10, 2014, the district court approved the arrangement as "fair and reasonable." The deadline for any appeals from the district court's decision passed on January 20, 2015, without any appeals having been taken.
