An agreement to finalize the cleanup of a century of toxic smelting pollution in Anaconda goes into effect this week. The deal will finish remediation within the next four years, at a cost of over $100 million.
The main slag pile right by Highway 1 on the way into Anaconda has seen a constant stream of activity over the past year, as contractors for Atlantic Richfield (AR) work to cover the giant black dune of toxic smelting waste.
“We’re putting a foot of soil over the top of it and then we’ll revegetate that this Spring,” Shanon Dunlap, a liability manager for AR, says.
The capping of the slag pile is one of the last steps in a 40-year cleanup at the 300 square mile Anaconda Smelter Superfund Site. The work on the slag pile is part of a final cleanup agreement between the Environmental Protection Agency and the Atlantic Richfield Corporation that officially starts Tuesday, February 14th.
The agreement, called a Consent Decree, defines the final steps left in the cleanup, which includes the slag pile, nearby soils and remaining residential abatement in Anaconda and Opportunity. Atlantic Richfield is required to pay for the remaining clean-up, at a cost of $83 million, as well as reimbursing the EPA $48 million for work already completed.
Charlie Coleman, the EPA project manager for the site, says once the cleanup is done, a period of observation and maintenance is required before potential deletion of the Superfund site can happen.
“There will be a period of monitoring, maybe a 5 to 10 year period,” Coleman said, “And then at that point, we really will be able to start deleting big parts of the site.”
The clean-up is expected to be finished by 2027.
