EPA: ARCO to spend $10.2M for NV mine cleanup
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says Atlantic Richfield Co. has agreed to spend $10.2 million for future and past cleanup efforts at an old copper mine in Yerington.
Under the settlement announced Wednesday, ARCO agreed to perform site cleanup estimated at $8 million and reimburse the EPA $2.2 million for past work.
EPA officials say the federal agency will use the recovered costs for further contamination containment efforts.
ARCO last year reimbursed the EPA $2.7 million.
The mine 65 miles southeast of Reno was the biggest producer of copper in the United States in the 1950s and into the 1960s before it was abandoned in 2000.
Processing of the copper produced a uranium byproduct, which contaminated the site along with arsenic and other heavy metals.
This is one of the first corporate clean-up agreements I've ever seen. I'm sure there might be more corporate uranium mining clean-up and remediation efforts, but I've yet to find them. Usually the government (hence, the taxpayers) have cleaned up uranium sites through Superfund efforts (such as Uravan, Colorado) or - lately - through stimulus funds (such as Moab, Utah).
I'm anxious to see how ARCO manages the cleanup effort. And, I'm curious to learn whether their efforts will be publicized.
