Chemical manufacturer to pay up to $1 billion to clean up California mine

October 20, 2000
Web posted at: 10:20 AM EDT (1420 GMT)

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) - In one of the biggest ever settlements in a toxic waste cleanup, a unit of European chemical giant Aventis SA has agreed to pay up to $1 billion to fix a polluted Northern California copper mine, federal regulators announced on Thursday.

The deal on behalf of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Department of the Interior, Department of Commerce and several state agencies requires Aventis CropSciences USA Inc., to repair the mine that at one time produced the most highly acidic runoff in the world.

Federal regulators put the Iron Mountain mine, located 9 miles north of Redding, Calif., on its Superfund list of the worst U.S. toxic waste sites in 1983.

"As recently as five years ago, this site dumped the equivalent of 150 tanker cars full of toxic metals into the Sacramento River each day during winter storms," said EPA Regional Administrator Felicia Marcus. "Now ... we have the funding and the resources in place to dramatically curtail the damage this site has imposed on our natural resources."

Representatives of Aventis CropSciences, a unit of Paris-based Aventis SA which was known formerly as Rhone Poulenc Inc., could not be reached for comment.

Rhone Poulenc purchased Stauffer Chemical Co., which owned the mine site, in the mid-1980s.

The agreement provides the money and resources to control runoff from the Iron Mountain mine that has killed thousands of salmon and other fish down a stretch of river some 200 miles (320 km) long. The mine, which was operational from the late 19th Century through 1963, was the biggest copper producer on the U.S. West Coast and yielded a variety of other minerals including iron, gold and silver.

But the mining operations left the mountain's mineral deposits exposed to oxygen, water and certain bacteria, resulting in their gradual break-down into intensely acidic drainage which has flowed into nearby creeks and waterways.

Regulators have known about the high pollution levels for decades and state and federal governments have been documenting the problems with the site's acid runoff since the turn of the century. The pollution is so bad that some estimate it will take 3,000 years to treat.

"The discharge from Iron Mountain is so toxic that when workers inadvertently left a shovel in the green liquid flowing from one of its portals, the next day half the shovel had been eaten away completely," Marcus said.

The deals calls for Aventis to pay some $160 million to fund the long-term operation and maintenance at the site and a lump sum of $514 million to the state and federal government in 2030.

And the firm agreed to make a payment of about $8 million to the EPA and $11 million to a council of state and federal trustee agencies. It also waived $150 million in past costs, and undertook to pay potential cost overruns which could bring the total settlement close to $1 billion, officials said.

"This agreement is an excellent example of government and the private sector working together to develop a solution to a serious environmental problem," said Winston Hickox, Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency.

Aventis was created last year through the merger of drug giants Rhone Poulenc and Germany's Hoechst to create one of the world's largest chemical, pharmaceutical and biotech firms.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency
Department of Interior
U.S. Department of Commerce
Aventis
  • Aventis Cropscience

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