Arco Agrees To Clark Fork Settlement Critics Say $260 Million Not Enough To Cover Environmental Damage

The Atlantic Richfield Co. will spend $260 million to clean up mining pollution in Montana’s Clark Fork River Basin, under terms of an agreement announced this week.

One result will be fewer toxic metals headed downstream toward Lake Pend Oreille.

It’s a case similar to the one that exists in the Coeur d’Alene River Basin, where mining companies have yet to settle with federal and tribal governments. The Coeur d’Alene situation is more complicated, however, with more potentially liable parties and more sources of pollution.

Montana sued ARCO in 1983. State, federal, and tribal lawyers have been battling with corporate lawyers since 1991.

The result is one of the largest natural resource damage settlements - reportedly second only to the $900 million Exxon paid in Alaska and the federal government in its Exxon Valdez settlement.

Still, ARCO’s $260 million isn’t enough from the perspective of environmental activists.

“Were certainly disappointed that the state received less than it asked for in its natural resource damages lawsuit, which was $750 million,” said Geoff Smith, staff scientist with the Clark Fork-Pend Oreille Coalition in Missoula. “But we’re encouraged that we do have some money to spend on the ground for cleanup.”

There’s a lot of ground to cover.

The settlement includes the Anaconda Superfund site, the largest in the country. The best-known symbol of the pollution is Butte’s massive Berkeley Pit, run by the Anaconda Copper Co. ARCO bought Anaconda in 1977.

“What they’re paying for is the result of what Anaconda did for 100 years,” explained John Wardell, director of the Montana office of the Environmental Protection Agency.

ARCO has no active operations in the area. In a press release, the company noted that it has reserved funds for the settlement, so “they will not have a material effect on ARCO’s net income.”

The settlement must still be approved by a federal judge.

Not every contaminated site in the upper basin was covered by the agreement. ARCO will pay more to Montana and the Department of the Interior in the future.

It does represent a final settlement with the Confederated Kootenai and Salish Tribes. Although the pollution originated off of their Flathead Reservation, the Indians were suing ARCO for restoration of their traditional fishing and hunting areas. The tribes got $18.3 million.

Tribal attorney Joe Hovenkotter said the settlement is cause for celebration because it represents an end to the “dismantling” of the Clark Fork River, which supported a traditional way of life.

The tribes will spend the ARCO money to restore or buy equivalent land, plus repair wetlands and bull trout habitat.

The state will spend $80 million of the settlement to clean up Silver Bow Creek, a Clark Fork tributary south of Butte. Smith called it one of the most contaminated streams in Montana, if not the West.

“It’s a 25-mile stream with tailings deposits up to five feet thick,” he said.

Copper is the big culprit in the Clark Fork. While not especially harmful to humans, Smith said, it can kill fish and the bugs they eat.

What metals stay in the river wash downstream to Lake Pend Oreille and, ultimately, the Columbia River. That pollution should be reduced by the cleanup in the upper basin, Smith said.

Much of the mining waste has collected in settling ponds near Anaconda and in the Milltown Reservoir, which is downstream near Missoula.

There are no such catch-basins for pollution in the Coeur d’Alene River, noted Bob Bostwick, press secretary for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

“Over here, Lake Coeur d’Alene is the mill pond” where the metals settle out, he said.

“Over there you had one concentrated mining source. Over here, you have hundreds of them.”

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe and federal agencies are building a case against mining companies in the Coeur d’Alene Basin, aiming to get cleanup dollars.

Some mining companies have long since settled with the state of Idaho. Bostwick said he hasn’t heard much talk lately of another settlement.

“It would be easier if there was one polluter,” he said. “Here we have eight or 10.”