Former ASARCO lead smelter
The East Helena Site includes the former ASARCO lead smelter that operated for more than a century, processing 70,000 tons of lead bullion per year and giving rise to the company town of East Helena.
In 1984, EPA declared the smelter a Superfund Site, and in 1998 ASARCO agreed to clean up the smelter site under the Resource and Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA). The smelter ceased operations in 2001.
On December 9, 2009, ASARCO transferred title to ±4,265 acres (plus about 2,000 acres of unpatented mining claims) at the four Sites in Montana to Montana Environmental Trust Group (METG) as Trustee of the Montana Environmental Custodial Trust (Custodial Trust), and deposited ±$138 million into the Custodial Trust for cleanup work.
About $94 million of the funds transferred to the Custodial Trust were earmarked for the East Helena Site, for:
- treating arsenic- and selenium-contaminated groundwater migrating off the plant site northwest toward the Helena Valley, and
- stabilizing, controlling, and/or removing lead- and arsenic-contaminated soils on the former ASARCO land.
In East Helena, the former ASARCO lands included ranches and farmland encircling three-quarters of the smelter property that were purchased due to concerns that contamination might be impacting growing and grazing.
ASARCO also transferred an additional $39.5 million directly to the State of Montana for natural resource damages.
Through the federal RCRA and CERCLA programs, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) has Lead Agency responsibility for enforcement and oversight of the East Helena Site. While the Custodial Trust took title to the property in 2009, the Custodial Trust acts solely as a fiduciary for the benefit of its Beneficiaries.
The Beneficiaries of the Custodial Trust are the United States and the State of Montana. The United States is represented by the U.S. EPA, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The State of Montana is represented by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the Montana Department of Justice.
