EVERETT — Millions of dollars to clean up 600 acres of north Everett could be at risk as another casualty of the global economic meltdown.
Copper-mining giant Asarco pledged to spend $38 million to remove lead, arsenic and other heavy metals in soil and groundwater near a copper smelter the company ran here a century ago.
The money was contingent on the company’s emerging from bankruptcy. An Indian metals conglomerate called Vedanta Resources offered to purchase Asarco for $2.6 billion in May, but the Vedanta is now backing away from the offer as the global economy slows down and copper prices have tumbled.
The state negotiated a $164 million settlement with Asarco — including the $38 million for Everett — earlier this year to clean up smelters and mining operations around Washington.
The state hopes the company will be required to adhere to its previous cleanup agreements, said Elliot Furst, senior counsel with the state Attorney General’s Office.
He’s flying to a federal mediation session in Houston to meet with Asarco company officials and the company’s creditors Thursday and Friday.
“I’m not even going to try to guess what will happen next or where we’ll end up,” Furst said.
Calls to Asarco’s headquarters in Tucson, Ariz., were not returned Monday. Asarco CEO Joseph Lapinsky said in a press release last week that Vedanta “cannot and will not” close the sale unless Asarco agrees to a price reduction.”
Earlier this month, Sterlite Industries, a subsidiary of Vedanta Resources, announced it could not make good on a $2.6 billion offer to acquire Asarco, the third-largest copper producer in the United States.
In the meantime, Grupo Mexico SAB, Asarco’s former parent company, is forwarding a rival restructuring plan.
Grupo Mexico bought Asarco in 1999. It later forced the sale of the majority of Asarco’s stake in lucrative Peruvian mines to another Grupo Mexico subsidiary.
Critics accused the Mexican company of improperly selling the profitable mines in order to force Asarco into bankruptcy, where it could shed its liability to pay $3.5 billion in cleanup costs across more than 100 sites in 16 states.
Areas in Everett with highly contaminated soil from the smelter have already been covered, fenced or removed, and there is no immediate danger to human health, according to the Department of Ecology.
Still, fallout from smoke that spewed from the Everett Smelter between 1892 and 1912 has left a toxic legacy in much of north Everett and a public health advisory from the Snohomish Health District remains in effect for the area. It is uncertain what health risks may be posed by long-term exposure to soil contaminated with arsenic, according to the state.
Financed in part by John D. Rockefeller, the Everett Smelter once refined ore from his mines in Monte Cristo, east of Granite Falls.
Dangerously high levels of arsenic weren’t discovered until 1990. Asarco bought back some of the most polluted land and tore down 22 houses on a hill overlooking the Snohomish River. It fenced off the section, which has since been sold to a private developer, cleaned and redeveloped into 90 townhomes with sweeping views from Mount Baker to the Snohomish River Valley.
The most recent cleanup near the site happened in the summer of 2007, when 10 homes located near the historic smelter site had soil contaminated with lead and arsenic removed.
About 600 acres in northeast Everett still need to be cleaned or evaluated, said Larry Altose, a state Department of Ecology spokesman. The cleanup will happen as funds become available, he said.
Since the $38 million cleanup settlement between the state and Asarco was reached earlier this year, officials with the state, the city and the Port of Everett have met to coordinate cleanup and determine how to split the settlement money.
Nearly $19 million would be used to reimburse the city for previous cleanup work and to remove tainted soil from properties in what’s called the uplands area, mostly west of E. Marine View Drive, said Pat McClain, Everett’s executive director,.
The port would spend about $10 million to take care of groundwater contamination at the Riverside Business Park, an 80-acre industrial park on the Snohomish River, east of the former smelter. The Department of Ecology, which has spearheaded most of the cleanup, would claim the remaining funds.
Reporter David Chircop: 425-339-3429 or dchircop@heraldnet.com.
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