Anaconda-Deer Lodge County has reached a nearly $30 million agreement with a former oil producer to clean up an old smelter site, according to the Montana Standard.
The wide-ranging cleanup agreement with the Atlantic Richfield Company includes more than $28 million in community development funding over the next 25 years. Roughly $9 million of that is to be paid within the first year.
The proposed agreement is a critical step in cleaning up the massive Anaconda Co. Smelter Site. Covering around 300 square miles in the Deer Lodge Valley, the site sustained environmental damage from decades of mining and smelting. It was placed on the national Superfund list in the early 1980s.
The settlement funds will go towards expanding Anaconda's attic dust removal program as well as economic development.
