A bankrupt copper giant facing billions of dollars in pollution claims
across the nation pretended for years to recycle metals while illegally
burning hazardous waste in a notorious El Paso smelter, according to a
newly released Environmental Protection Agency document.
Smelting in El Paso The agency, in a 1998 internal memorandum, said the
company, Asarco, and its Corpus Christi subsidiary, Encycle, had a
permit to extract metals from hazardous waste products but used that as
a cover to burn the waste until the late 1990 s, saving the high costs
of proper disposal.
Among the more than 5,000 tons the company was accused of
misrepresenting as containing metals for reclamation were more than 300
tons of nonmetallic residues from the former Army chemical warfare depot
at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal outside Denver. (It is not clear what the
arsenal s material contained.)
“This activity, plain and simple, was illegal treatment and disposal of
hazardous waste,” the environmental agency said in the memorandum, long
held confidential but recently obtained by two El Paso environmental
groups opposed to the smelter. “Encycle s own business records provide
compelling evidence of sham recycling.”
There was no response to messages left for an Asarco spokeswoman at
corporate offices in Tucson and for the El Paso plant manager. But a
company history states, “Asarco is committed to responsible management
of our natural resources.”
Asarco was founded as the American Smelting and Refining Company in 1899
and was bought by Mexican interests in 1999. It has long faced
complaints of contaminating broad swaths of downtown El Paso and
borderland areas of Mexico with lead and other dangerous metals, and it
has been the target of federal, state and local complaints involving at
least 94 sites in 21 states.
But although the environmental agency reached a landmark national $20
million cleanup and penalty settlement with Asarco in 1999, the details
of the violations had never been disclosed. The El Paso plant was shut
down in 1999, but the company is now seeking permission to reopen it.
The long-confidential records were obtained from the Texas Commission on
Environmental Quality through public information requests by the two
citizens groups, the Get the Lead Out Coalition and the Sunland Park
Grassroots Environmental Group, which provided copies to The New York
Times.
“They were supposed to recycle reusable residues,” said Heather
McMurray, a teacher who requested the records. “They just burned them.”
Ms. McMurray said the disclosure came as news to her and other activists
who had been opposing Asarco for years with claims that pollutants
released by the plant caused untold sickness.
“How could this not have been made public before?” said State Senator
Eliot Shapleigh, Democrat of El Paso, who has long campaigned against
the company and tracks developments on his Web site. “I was not aware of
it.”
Mr. Shapleigh added: “In the American West, the modern trail of tears is
the lead and arsenic left behind from Asarco.”
Michael D. Goodstein, who as a Justice Department environmental lawyer
helped negotiate the 1999 settlement with Asarco, said the E.P.A.
memorandum detailing Asarco’s violations was for internal use and was
not meant to become public.
“This was the E.P.A. position, and it was addressed in the enforcement
actions and the settlement approved by the judge,” Mr. Goodstein, who is
out of the government, said in an interview. Although the 122-page
settlement does not spell out misdeeds, it commits Asarco to lengthy
remedies, including the proper recycling of hazardous waste.
Terry Clawson, a spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental
Quality, also said, “You can t say this was unknown.”
Mr. Clawson pointed to an E.P.A. news release in 1999 that announced the
settlement of federal and state claims against Asarco. But the release,
while citing the company for “failing to properly manage hazardous waste
and otherwise engaging in unlawful recycling practices” and accepting
“shipments of unmanifested hazardous waste,” does not say specifically
that the company burned the waste under a subterfuge.
Although the company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, it
is also awaiting action from the Texas commission on an application to
renew smelting in El Paso, and it still faces a mountain of litigation
and enforcement actions. As recently as August, the Justice Department
filed a claim under the bankruptcy proceedings to assure Asarco’s
compliance with terms of the agreed-upon cleanup at Encycle.
At the same time, Mr. Shapleigh said a tabulation showed that legal
claims filed against Asarco amounted to more than $21 billion.
(Por Ralph Blumenthal,
The N.Y. Times, 11/10/2006)