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Phoenix's Asarco settles environmental claims for $27.3 million

Aug 30, 2007 | Associated Press | Bloomberg News

Asarco LLC, a bankrupt copper-mining company, won a judge's approval to settle more than $200 million worth of environmental claims for $27.3 million.

The settlements resolve pollution claims related to the company's mining operations in Leadville, Colorado, where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had been trying to keep contaminants from leaking into the Arkansas River.

"The settlement agreements provide certainty to the debtor and the estate," U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Richard S. Schmidt in Corpus Christi, Texas, said in an order issued yesterday. "The liabilities are liquidated and the risks of future contingencies are eliminated."

Asarco, based in Phoenix, filed for bankruptcy in 2005 facing billions of dollars in claims from alleged asbestos- poisoning victims and from governments accusing the mining company of failing to clean up decades of pollution. The company, under the control of court-appointed independent directors, has accused its parent, Mexico City's Grupo Mexico SAB, of selling assets that Asarco could have used to pay claims.

Creditors have filed claims worth about $13.5 billion, including $2.6 billion by the asbestos victims, Asarco has said.

Under the settlement approved yesterday, Asarco won't oppose $19.3 million in claims that the U.S. and Colorado state governments will file in the bankruptcy case. The company will pay $2 million in cash to its joint-venture partner in its Colorado mining operations. That partner, Resurrection Mining Co., will also get an uncontested $6 million claim in Asarco's bankruptcy case.