Asarco will sell site in Ruston for homes

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, July 27, 2006

SEATTLE – The U.S. Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency announced a deal Thursday that would allow Asarco LLC to sell contaminated land on a Tacoma-area shoreline to a developer that plans to build houses, condominiums and businesses there.

Officials said the agreement would expedite roughly $28 million in cleanup work that remains at the site of the former copper smelter in Ruston.

“This agreement is a giant step in transforming this site from a highly contaminated former smelting facility to a residential development,” Granta Nakayama, the EPA’s assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance, said in a statement announcing the deal. “The cleanup and redevelopment of this land is a win all around. It enhances the environment, improves the local community, and promotes economic development.”

Justice Department and EPA officials said Point Ruston LLC, a developer based in Lacey, has agreed to clean up about 97 acres of contaminated land in the sprawling Superfund site north of Tacoma.

The land, which offers stunning views of Mount Rainier and Commencement Bay, is contaminated with arsenic, a cancer-causing byproduct of copper smelting, and lead, which can slow brain development in children.

Cleanup hit a snag last summer, when Phoenix-based Asarco, a subsidiary of Mexican mining company Grupo Mexico SA, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

In January, a bankruptcy judge in Texas approved Asarco’s proposal to sell its Ruston property to MC Construction Consultants Inc., which later formed Point Ruston LLC, the company that’s now in line to acquire the land, said Tom Aldrich, Asarco’s vice president of environmental affairs.

Mike Cohen, owner of MC Construction and managing member of Point Ruston, said he plans to submit his first construction permits within two months to prepare part of the site for about 35 single-family homes.

Other plans for the site include about 800 housing units, including condominiums, possibly some apartment and senior housing, as well as commercial retail space for restaurants and the like, Cohen said. If all goes as planned, he said he hopes construction can begin sometime next summer.

Cohen said he’s confident that cleanup, which primarily involves “capping” the contaminated soil with clean material, will ensure the land is safe. “We’re dealing with low-level contamination in the soil … that has been in Ruston yards approaching 100 years,” Cohen said.

In addition, Point Ruston has agreed to cap a stretch of contaminated marine sediment just offshore with clean material.

The sale agreement calls for the new owner to meet Asarco’s cleanup obligations and pay Asarco $6.2 million in cash plus at least $7.5 million in development payouts, depending on the number of housing units that are built.

Asarco would have to return $4 million of that money to the EPA, and up to $1.5 million more if development payouts total more than $7.5 million, Aldrich said.

After a 30-day public comment period, the revised cleanup agreement announced Thursday can be submitted to a federal judge for final approval, Aldrich said.

“We’re very pleased that it’s moving along,” he said.