Correction: Cost of Asarco cleanup still under scrutiny April 26, 2009

 Correction to article:

Where it says "but the matter was not made public until 2004, after McMurray and others came across a 1998 EPA memo obtained under the Freedom of Information Act."

It should read

but the matter was not made public until 10/2006, after McMurray, a biology teacher acting alone,  received a 1998 u.s. doj EPA asarco confidential for settlement purposes only 73 page document obtained under her Freedom of Information Act request.

 The document was released to the New York Times who covered it front page news so, in the words of former Sierra Blanca nuclear dump activist Addington, "asarco could never bury the document".

See 2009 story published under fair use at https://eliotshapleigh.com/news/print/3046-cost-of-asarco-cleanup-still-under-scrutiny

"

Cost of Asarco cleanup still under scrutiny
April 26, 2009

Some of Asarco's harshest critics in El Paso say the $52 million planned to remove contamination in El Paso is not nearly enough.

Written by Diana Wasington Valdez, The El Paso Times

EL PASO -- Some of Asarco's harshest critics in El Paso say the $52 million planned to remove contamination in El Paso is not nearly enough.

And they are asking the EPA to schedule a new public hearing to help settle the issue.

Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, said the $52 million to remove El Paso's contamination is insufficient, and the true cost is closer to $250 million.

Shapleigh says the $52 million remediation plan for the El Paso copper smelter "does not include 250 acres of contiguous property owned by Asarco but not located at the (main) 100-acre smelter site."

Shapleigh and others who fought against Asarco's restarting smelter operations are asking the Environmental Protection Agency to conduct a public hearing in El Paso to address this and other issues.

Juliet Lozano, spokeswoman for Mayor John Cook, said "the city believes there should be a hearing in El Paso, and we are working with EPA to schedule one."

The EPA, which is seeking comments from the community, has not decided whether to convene a hearing.

Lozano said the city of El Paso has accepted the $52 million level for cleanup, and is waiting on a pending settlement to go through involving Asarco, the EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Under the settlement, Lozano said, "the smelter property would be transferred to a custodial trust for cleanup and disposition by an independent trustee, the smelter would not reopen as an operating smelter, Asarco would no longer control or own the smelter, and the custodial trust would be funded with $52 million in cash from Asarco for cleanup."

Tucson-based Asarco LLC, through a spokeswoman in El Paso, said it cannot comment on issues involving litigation or pending before the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Corpus Christi.

This week, the court said Sterlite Industries Ltd., India's largest copper producer, can buy Asarco for $1.1 billion and a $600 million note, but Grupo Mexico of Mexico City said it wants to reassume control of Asarco and offered $1.3 billion for its former subsidiary.

Asarco repeatedly has denied the smelter is responsible for the lead and arsenic contamination the EPA found in more than 1,000 residential and business properties in West and South El Paso. Asarco said the most likely culprits are pesticides containing arsenic, lead-based paint, leaded gasoline and slag, a smelting byproduct.

Exposure to high levels of lead can cause developmental problems in children, and arsenic poisoning can lead to certain cancers, according to health experts.

Get the Lead Out, a grass-roots organization in El Paso, is also asking for the smokestacks to be demolished, before another smelting operation moves in.

Water contamination

El Pasoans Juan Garza and Heather McMurray have fought for more than five years against the reopening of the smelter. Among other things, they and other activists want regulatory agencies to ensure that lead and arsenic from the plant site won't spill into the river again.

Since the fight over the smelter's air permit began, TCEQ addressed only the question of whether restarting the smelter would pollute El Paso's airshed. During the proceedings for Asarco's air permit renewal, the state agency did not consider soil and water contamination issues.

For example, a 2006 lab report by El Paso Water Utilities showed excessive levels of arsenic (404 parts per million/milligrams per liter), cadmium (67.4 ppm), lead (2,800 ppm) and mercury (1.09 ppm) were found in soil at the Asarco entrance about six weeks after El Paso experienced a major flood. The report said the substances came from Asarco's plant site, and the city took charge of the matter. The acceptable levels for these substances, respectively, are 0.01 ppm, 0.005 ppm, 0.015 ppm and 0.002 ppm.

A second report by the former Texas Water Commission in 1990 warned about the need to shore up the protective runoff structure at Asarco to prevent contaminants from spilling into the river in case of a 100-year-flood event, such as the flooding of August 2006.

A third report, one by EPA in 1997, said Texas state officials had found large concentrations of arsenic in El Paso's groundwater from discharges at the smelter.

Christina Montoya, spokeswoman for El Paso Water Utilities, said the water from the Rio Grande is safe to drink because it is treated thoroughly at the city's plants before it reaches water customers. Although the 2006 report mentions the Franklin Canal, the samples were actually taken from soil, she said.

"During the 2006 flood, the city shut down its water treatment plants," Montoya said. Utility chemical analysis reports are published each year, and they show no contamination with these four metals.

The U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission, which oversees water treaties with Mexico, filed a claim against Asarco in the U.S. bankruptcy court alleging soil and groundwater contamination "related to the historic operations of the [Asarco] smelter."

The IBWC claim seeks unspecified money to clean up the area within the American Canal and the IBWC field office across Paisano Drive from Asarco.

The smelter, which began operating 110 years ago, sits on top of a hill in West El Paso next to the river and across the border from Juárez; it has been dormant since 1999.

Contaminated soil

The saga over Asarco began in the early 1990s, when students and other researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso and New Mexico State University conducted tests at the UTEP campus, which is near Asarco. They found excessive levels of lead and arsenic in the soil.

Shapleigh, who became the principal catalyst in the battle to shut down Asarco, became interested in their findings. After talking to them, he convened a group of officials from EPA, TCEQ (then called Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission), the former El Paso City-County Health and Environmental Department and the Texas Department of Health.

The group asked EPA to examine the potential health risks to El Pasoans, and the agency set a three-mile radius from the smelter for the evaluation.

EPA tested 1,944 properties, and found some with arsenic levels as high as 81 parts per million and lead levels as high as 1,700 ppm. For the cleanup, EPA set thresholds at 24 ppm for arsenic and 500 ppm for lead.

The federal agency also said Asarco was potentially responsible for the soil contamination, which Asarco vehemently denied.

The cleanup process began with money from a $100 million environmental trust fund agreed to by Asarco, EPA and the U.S. Justice Department.

In 2002, Asarco applied with the TCEQ to renew its air quality permit, which would allow it to emit pollutants into the air, including lead, carbon monoxide, sulfuric acid and sulfur dioxide.

After considerable pressure from the community, TCEQ agreed to conduct a contested-case hearing on the permit request in El Paso in 2004.

Opponents complained the hearing focused only on air pollution, and did not allow testimony on water and soil contamination. TCEQ also limited its consideration to El Paso, and excluded testimony on how the emissions would affect residents in neighboring Juárez and New Mexico.

El Pasoan Mariana Chew, an environmental engineer and Sierra Club member, said TCEQ officials ignored the 1983 La Paz Agreement, an accord between the United States and Mexico that calls for cooperation on environmental issues along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The city of El Paso formally joined the opposition against the permit renewal, while New Mexico officials, including Gov. Bill Richardson, and Juárez city officials, also came out against the permit.

El Paso city officials spent more than $1 million on its legal case against Asarco, but last year the TCEQ's three appointed commissioners voted in favor of renewing the air permit.

Asarco opponents did not give up, and Shapleigh once more turned to the EPA regional office for help.

Earlier this year, despite the state-approved permit, EPA made it clear Asarco would need to update its equipment before it could resume smelting operations. EPA warned it might not comply with federal air quality standards without repairs and new equipment.

After that, citing falling copper prices, Asarco announced it would abandon plans to reopen the El Paso plant.

Bankruptcy

Asarco, which also faced multimillion-dollar environmental complaints in other states, was having its own problems with its parent corporation, Grupo Mexico, which had bought Asarco in 1999.

That same year, the worldwide price of copper had plummeted, prompting Asarco to suspend its smelting operations in El Paso. Later on, the price of copper would rise dramatically, making the smelter financially attractive, assuming the permit went through.

Grupo Mexico, which owned large mines in Mexico, through Asarco obtained a stake in the lucrative Southern Peru Copper Corp. Back then, its board of directors included executives from Kimberly Clark and the Carlyle Group, a global firm associated with former President George H. Bush.

But Asarco, hounded by a growing list of creditors, ended up battling against Grupo Mexico, which it accused of stripping it of its profitable stake in a Peruvian cooper mine. Asarco won the legal dispute, and on April 1, a court ordered Grupo Mexico to pay Asarco $6 billion in damages. Grupo Mexico officials have said they will appeal the ruling.

Shapleigh has said the $6 billion Asarco may receive because of the court victory is another reason Asarco should pay for the cleanup in El Paso.

During the George W. Bush administration, former Asarco employees worked at EPA's headquarters and as White House environmental advisers.

Garza, McMurray, Chew and other community activists in the region often felt that they faced enormous odds when they decided to take on Asarco, a company with friends in high places. But, they kept on fighting.

Shapleigh, who filed an open records request to obtain correspondence between TCEQ and Asarco, gave a blunt assessment of the politics.

"During the Bush administration, polluters captured and corrupted EPA, and Asarco's contacts were similar to those at the TCEQ," he said. "Routinely, polluters dump millions of dollars in political campaign contributions. Then, several months later, their permits are mysteriously approved."

TCEQ officials have denied any wrongdoing in relation to the smelter's permit process or to Shapleigh's open-records request.

After Asarco filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection four years ago, the tide began to change in favor of the smelter's opponents.

Asarco's parent company, Asarco Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Americas Mining Corp. (a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico), lost control of Asarco in 2005, when the bankruptcy court appointed an independent board to manage the company.

Questions arose over what Asarco intended to do with the El Paso smelter, and whether local taxpayers would end up having to pay for expensive cleanup bills if the copper smelter went broke.

Shapleigh tried to get El Paso officials to seek EPA Superfund status to cover the potential costs of the cleanup. However, the idea was shot down by business and government leaders who feared the status would give El Paso a black eye and scare away investors.

El Pasoan Risher Gilbert, one of the West El Paso neighbors who pushed for the EPA cleanup, said "I always felt the Asarco smelter should be a Superfund site, not the rest of the (affected) area. I'm thrilled that the smelter will not reopen. The days are over when a large smelter ought to operate in the middle of the city."

Two secrets

Shapleigh contends two public health hazards were kept hidden from the public despite previous public hearings on the Asarco permit.

He and activists opposed to Asarco unearthed the information from reams of environmental records, and fights with agencies to obtain documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

"We still need to get to the bottom of two secrets," Shapleigh said. "One was why the illegal incineration of hazardous wastes at Asarco was kept from the public, and the other is the 233 million cubic feet of contaminated groundwater plume around the smelter. We have concerns as to whether the cleanup plan will adequately address the groundwater issues."

The suspected groundwater contamination is the result of more than 100 years of smelting and other operations at the Asarco site.

McMurray, a member of Sunland Park Grassroots Environmental Coalition, said El Pasoans have a right to know what hazardous wastes were burned by Asarco at the El Paso plant site. The waste had been shipped to El Paso from the company's subsidiary Encycle Inc. in Corpus Christi.

"Records are missing, and some of us suspect some of hazardous waste contaminated our river and groundwater," she said.

According to a 2007 report of the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, Encycle received military waste from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado, and then burned it in El Paso without a permit. Asarco denied any wrongdoing.

EPA officials said the issue involving Encycle was resolved in a $20.5 million settlement in 1999, but the matter was not made public until 2004, after McMurray and others came across a 1998 EPA memo obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Recently, the price of copper began climbing again. China, which is making noises about changing its currency base, is buying up copper and other metals around the world for this purpose.

The Tucson-based Asarco would not say if changing market conditions will alter its plans in El Paso.

For now, it appears Asarco's fate in El Paso will be determined by the bankruptcy court, EPA and the metals market.

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Copyright © 2025 - Senator Eliot Shapleigh  •  Political Ad Paid For By Eliot Shapleigh

C8 had to be at asarco el paso

 C8 is everywhere

So, why aren't we told the levels?

Of:

1. c8
2. Dioxins
3. Actinide
4. Beta radiation (would still be here)
5. Clearly told about arsenic and lead (with honest testing)
6. The list goes on

This is a great video that was easy for people to watch

Watch great video explaining teflon and C8

Sponsors for insights museum STEM

Today's politicians and scientists should follow NASCAR's drivers' example and wear sponsors on their jackets. 

 

I sights museum gives dino track tours over land historically exposed to smelter wastes and its illegal toxic wastes 1992-1998.

When Insights takes folks on dino track tours, online it seems no one talks about the arsenic and other toxic wastes that historically exist within at least 3   miles of asarco's smelter. Or, the illegal haz wastes burned at asarco from 1992-1998 per EPA and U.S.DOJ.   

But, this site is promoted by scientists who ARE aware of the toxins.  These people should disclose these toxins to people before asking them to sign a waiver, imho. 

Children are short and lower to the ground contamination; and to any off-gassing. They also have greater surface area to body ratio.  Their parents may not realize the land is toxic according to EPA proposed superfund area and how much further toxins travel. 

To go on the tour everyone must sign a waiver

Insights dino tracks site

I hope the guides are instructing folks to stay as safe as possible. To this day the dioxin levels have not been disclosed. Lead, arsenic, beta radioactive particles, maybe actinides...  After living in smelter toxic shadow people give up and go with the flow, figuring it wont get them sick, maybe someone else. 

If you want to teach science, you need to teach scientific method, and that begins with asking honest questions to seek factual answers, not political ones.

Radiation exposure increases the chance of getting cancer, and the risk increases as the dose increases: the higher the dose, the greater the risk,” says the US Environmental Protection Agency, citing studies that follow groups of people exposed to radiation".

In 1998 EPA said el paso tx had higest beta radiation level in the usa both water and soil 

This article on bomb testing lets you know how such exposure raises chances for cancers. 

The center for public integrity 2011 " In smelter town, decades of dirty air, disease — and bureaucratic dawdling Avatar photo by Jim Morris and Emma Schwartz November 17, 2011"

[hayden became a superfund site, and it all closed down.  Then a few yrs ago after pandemic asarco reopened two closed sites, hayden being one.  Effectively, imho, what was secretly illegally smelted in el paso tx and east helena mt just moved to hayden. (To this day we do not know what those materials were).  I was told that had i not gotten the public release (10/06 nytimes) of the 1998  73 page conf for settlement purposes only u.s. DOJ, EPA asarco document that el paso tx would have reopened.]

Center for Public Integrity

Link to story

Posted in Environment

In smelter town, decades of dirty air, disease — and bureaucratic dawdling

Avatar photo

by Jim Morris and Emma Schwartz

November 17, 2011

The Asarco copper smelter looms over Hayden, Arizona. Emma Schwartz/iWatch News

Reading Time: 13 minutes

Key findings

Toxic air pollution, involving nearly 200 chemicals deemed so harmful to health Congress sought to bring emissions under control 21 years ago, persists in hundreds of U.S. communities.

About 1,600 polluters around the country are classified by the U.S. EPA as “high priority violators” of the Clean Air Act — sites regulators believe need urgent attention.

Regulators take months and sometimes years to enforce anti-pollution rules. About 400 facilities are on an internal EPA “watch list” that includes serious or chronic Clean Air Act violators that have not been subject to timely enforcement.

Regulators largely rely on an honor system easily manipulated by polluters, which report their own emissions.

Criminal cases usually don’t target big polluters. Relatively few cases have led to penalties since 1990 – and only a handful involving air toxics.

HAYDEN, Ariz. — As Betty Amparano sees it, the failures that all but ruined this wisp of a town occurred on multiple levels.

A copper smelter failed to keep toxic air pollution in check. The state failed to lean on the smelter’s owner, Asarco. And the federal government failed, until days ago, to override the state.

“The bottom line is that the whole town is contaminated,” said Amparano, who was born in Hayden and has lived here most of her life.

Soil tainted by airborne metals has been excavated from hundreds of yards. In some families, generations claim to have suffered ill effects from bad air. Deaths from cancer are common. Regulators have done little; for people who live here, the sense of betrayal is profound.

On Nov. 10, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved against Asarco for what the EPA describes as more than six years of illegal emissions of arsenic, lead, chromium and seven other dangerous compounds from the smelter. The agency issued an unpublicized administrative action that could result in millions of dollars in fines from Asarco for allegedly being in “continuous violation” of the Clean Air Act since June 2005. The action is a slap at both the company and the state — another measure of failure.

YouTube video

Asarco says its emissions are within legal limits and promises to “vigorously” contest the EPA’s claims. The head of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) calls the federal filing a “paperwork exercise” and an “attempt by the EPA to make it seem as if the state of Arizona has done nothing when, in fact, that is not true.” At the same time, he acknowledges the state has been too slow to act.

People in Hayden just want someone to do something about the air.

Known risks, government inaction

When it comes to toxic air pollution, help often arrives late. As an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity’s iWatch News and NPR has shown, the EPA itself maintains an internal watch list that catalogs the extent of foot-dragging by state environmental agencies entrusted by Washington to protect public health. Some agencies fail to crack down on known polluters for months or years. The Asarco smelter, while not on the watch list, is among more than 1,600 facilities the EPA considers “high priority violators” of the Clean Air Act — sites that regulators believe need urgent attention.

Here, government inaction goes back decades.

Amparano started a lawsuit against Asarco in the late 1990s — since settled — that came to include more than 200 plaintiffs. She welcomes the federal intervention but wishes it had come sooner. She’d like to ask the EPA, “Why the hell did you take so long?”

Since 1912, Hayden, population barely 900, has been both blessed and cursed by the presence of the smelter, fed by Asarco’s massive, open-pit Ray Mine 20 miles up the road. The smelter and mine have brought with them a precious commodity in this barren stretch of southeastern Arizona an hour north of Tucson — jobs. The jobs may have come at a steep price.

Asarco has spent the past three years cleaning up Hayden. On order of the EPA, the company has paid millions for the removal and replacement of dirt in the yards of nearly 300 residents because the soil was contaminated with arsenic, which can cause cancer, and lead, which can disrupt brain function.

Asarco’s smelter turns ore into nearly pure copper bars. The EPA alleges the company has been in “continuous violation” of the Clean Air Act for excessive emissions of arsenic, lead and other metals since 2005. (Emma Schwartz)

And yet emissions from the smelter and dust blown from a 2,000-acre tailings pile — an ever-expanding mountain of mining waste — continue to deposit those same metals and other poisons on this poor, mostly Latino community.

It’s hard to escape Asarco’s footprint. The smelter’s 1,000-foot smokestack is visible from anywhere in town. A community playground and swimming pool lie just yards from the plant’s fence.

Asarco has long maintained — and the state concurs — that the Hayden smelter is not a “major source” of hazardous air pollutants, a designation that could force the company to install costly controls. The EPA disagrees, saying in its Nov. 10 filing that Asarco “has failed and continues to fail to comply” with federal rules applying to big polluters.

“There is no simple paperwork violation,” Jared Blumenfeld, the EPA’s regional administrator in San Francisco, told iWatch News and NPR. “We feel very comfortable, based on the science, that the Hayden Asarco facility is a major source and therefore needs to comply with the Clean Air Act by putting control technologies on.”

Amparano and her older sister, Mary Corona, have inventoried what they describe as a staggering amount of death and disease in Hayden: Middle-aged people and children who succumbed to cancer. Kids with asthma and young adults who may be suffering the effects of childhood lead exposures.

News from our partners

 

NPR and affiliate coverage

 

“EPA Takes Action Against Toxic Arizona Copper Plant,” by Howard Berkes: featured on Morning Edition

“EPA Regulations Give Kilns Permission To Pollute,” by Howard Berkes: featured on Morning Edition

“A Family’s Fight To Clear The Air,” by Sarah Harris and Howard Berkes

“Secret ‘Watch List’ Reveals Failure To Curb Toxic Air,” by Elizabeth Shogren: featured on Morning Edition

“Powdery Pollution Coats Oklahoma Town,” by Howard Berkes and Sandra Bartlett: featured on All Things Considered

“Texas’ Lax Pollution Enforcement Leads Harris County to Take Action” by Dave Fehling, State Impact project

“Poisoned Places: Seven of the Worst Offenders in Florida” by Steve Newborn, WMFE 90.7 Orlando

“TCEQ’s Approach Is Under Fire” by Mose Buchele, KUHF 88.7 Houston

 

Related content from the Investigative News Network

 

“Florida Home to Seven Air Polluters on EPA Watch List,” by Trevor Aaronson and Mc Nelly Torres, Florida Center for Investigative Reporting

“Seattle glass recycler Saint-Gobain leads list of NW companies fined for violating Clean Air Act,” by Robert McClure and Lisa Stiffler, Investigate West

“EPA enforcement often brings more hot air than heat,” by B. Poole, Tucson Sentinel

“Enviro group sues EPA to list Tucson among air quality danger zones,” by B. Poole, Tucson Sentinel

“Under legal pressure, Wisconsin coal-fired power plants curb emissions,” by Sarah Karon and Lauren Hasler, Wisconsin Center for Investigative Reporting

The pollution and the risks have been well known to regulators for years.

A 1980 memo by a state environmental official noted that the Hayden smelter has “problems with lead and arsenic fumes during their process because of the type of ore they receive … There is still a large amount of fugitive gas escaping.”

Concerns about fugitive emissions — from parts of the smelter other than the smokestack — continued. In 2009, the EPA reported that “air monitoring in [Hayden] has shown levels of arsenic, lead and chromium still exceeding public health standards, probably due to toxic fumes escaping from leaks in the plant” — an assertion Asarco disputes.

Asarco acknowledges discharging arsenic, lead, sulfuric acid and other pollutants from the smelter but accepts no blame for anyone’s poor health. “There’s no reason to be alarmed,” said Joseph Wilhelm, general manager of the company’s Hayden operations. Nonetheless, Asarco, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 and now is reaping the benefits of soaring copper prices, has promised to do better. In a statement to iWatch News and NPR, the company said it is investing $9 million to “significantly reduce not only lead emissions but other [hazardous air] emissions including arsenic and chromium.”

The EPA seems unimpressed.

In a letter on July 27, the agency chastised Asarco for not taking the Hayden cleanup more seriously, saying the company seemed more interested in justifying its lack of cooperation than in “providing any attempt at compliance.” Asarco is contesting the EPA’s allegations through a dispute resolution process.

In a letter to Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Nov. 8, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote that air monitoring this year had measured lead levels in Hayden at up to three times the federal standard.

The Team

This project is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and NPR.

Lead reporter: Jim Morris

 

 

Data analysts: Elizabeth Lucas (CPI) and Robert Benincasa (NPR)

 

 

Reporting team: Chris Hamby, Ronnie Greene, Kristen Lombardi, Corbin Hiar (CPI), Howard Berkes, Sandra Bartlett and Elizabeth Shogren (NPR)

 

 

Images and video: Emma Schwartz (CPI), John Poole and David Gilkey (NPR)

 

 

Web team: Cole Goins, Ajani Winston, Sarah Whitmire, Erik Lincoln (CPI) and Alicia Cypress and Nelson Hsu (NPR)

 

 

Research: Barbara Van Woerkom (NPR) and Devorah Adler (CPI)

 

 

Also contributing: Rachael Marcus, Paul Abowd, Alexandra Duszak (CPI) and Quinn Ford (NPR)

 

 

Data editor: David Donald

 

 

NPR editor: Susanne Reber

 

 

Project editor: Keith Epstein

 

 

And in its Nov. 10 “finding of violation,” the EPA alleged that Asarco has, among other things, failed to comply with emissions limits since 2005.

The federal government, which allows states to be the primary enforcers of the Clean Air Act, has largely deferred to Arizona’s regulatory agency. Despite the EPA’s allegations, Asarco has faced few repercussions for its activities in Hayden. A spokesman for the ADEQ said the company over the last five years has paid a single, $77,500 air pollution fine — for blowing dust from the tailings pile.

Asarco is owned by a Mexico City-based mining and smelting conglomerate, Grupo México, which reported what it called “record results” for 2010 — more than $8 billion in sales, a 67-percent increase over 2009. Copper sales alone totaled $5.3 billion, up from $2.7 billion.

A company town

Workers have been gouging copper ore from the Ray Mine since 1880. Asarco began processing the ore at its Hayden smelter in 1912, turning out 800-pound slabs of nearly pure copper called anodes.

“Without Asarco, the town of Hayden wouldn’t be able to exist,” said Mayor Monica Badillo, an operator with the company. “We get a lot of our tax revenue from the mine, so that’s what helps us continue to thrive. Every bit of copper that they sell, we get sales tax on that.”

Mary Corona and her sister, Betty, were born in 1958 and 1959, respectively. They grew up with four siblings in Hayden’s barrio, known as San Pedro. Mary recalls having bloody noses and fevers as a child and recurring sores on her torso that looked like cigarette burns. She and Betty would play in a gully — an arroyo — behind their home and apply purple and pink residue to their faces as pretend makeup. That residue, they now believe, was a toxic byproduct of Asarco wastewater.

Huge dust clouds from the tailings pile were common in the 1960s, Mary said. “It was so bad we couldn’t see our hands in front of our faces.” Acid from the smelter would eat the paint off of cars, and Asarco sometimes would reimburse the owners.

By the 1970s, unsettling research on smelter towns, including Hayden, was appearing in the medical literature. A 1977 article in the American Journal of Epidemiology found, for example, that “chronic absorption of arsenic, lead, and cadmium by persons living near smelters, particularly by such potentially vulnerable groups such as young children and pregnant women, may be causing undetected, latent disease that will become manifest in the future.” The authors studied 19 communities in all, 11 with copper smelters.

Hair samples taken from children in Hayden showed the second-highest levels of arsenic among the 11 towns; only Anaconda, Mont., was worse.

In 1990, the Arizona Department of Health Services found elevated lung cancer death rates in the Gila Basin, which includes Hayden. “The cause of the elevation remains to be explained,” the department said. “Data is lacking concerning the incidence of cigarette smoking, and the levels of exposure to arsenic or other potential carcinogens.”

Passage of the Clean Air Act amendments that same year sharpened regulators’ focus on air toxics — nearly 200 hazardous chemicals that could cause cancer, birth defects and other ailments. Beginning in 1991, two inspectors with the ADEQ, Dave Kempson and Mike Traubert, went after Asarco aggressively, regularly writing up the company for so-called opacity violations. High opacity — the degree to which air is impenetrable to light — can be an indicator of excessive particulate emissions, which can include arsenic, lead and other harmful metals.

Reports by Kempson and Traubert in 1991 and 1992 — obtained by iWatch News from ADEQ files — describe dense plumes of smoke emanating from the smelter. The violations added up, but Asarco pushed back. In a June 7, 1991, letter to the ADEQ, the company complained, “Your office seems intent on creating an adversarial relationship with a company that has consistently cooperated in efforts to improve air quality in this community.”

In recent interviews with iWatch News in Phoenix, Kempson and Traubert — no longer with the agency — recalled hoping to build a major enforcement case against Asarco. Unannounced inspections often turned up violations. “We would then document those violations and write a letter [to Asarco],” Kempson said, “and more often than not would get a rebuttal from the company’s law firm.”

Traubert said that Asarco would “explain [an air release] away as an extraordinary event” — unusual and uncontrollable. “It strained credulity a bit,” he said.

Ultimately, Traubert said, the hoped-for case against Asarco “kind of languished. I don’t have a good explanation of why it didn’t go any farther. Within our group we certainly had the perception that you tangle with the mines with care.”

Blood tests and litigation

In 1997, Betty Amparano was asked to renew her lease on the house she’d been renting in Hayden. The house was on Terrace Drive, on a hill near the tailings pile. The lease included a caveat: The house was contaminated with metals-laden dust.

Amparano took her seven children to the doctor for blood tests. All had blood lead levels above what the federal government considered to be safe. Erin, then 5, and Ray, then 8, had levels more than four times higher than the limit. Even relatively low lead exposures have been associated with diminished IQs, learning disabilities and other neurological problems.

Erin Amparano, now 19, said she still suffers from the lead that entered her blood. “I have trouble sleeping at night,” she said. “I’m always really hyper. I get rashes and headaches. I had difficulty learning, and it was real hard for me to pay attention. I’m still like that to this day.” She has two young daughters of her own. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t be here,” she said.

A local newspaper published a story about the Amparanos’ plight in 1997, catching the attention of Steve Brittle, leader of a Phoenix-based environmental group called Don’t Waste Arizona. During his first visit to Hayden, “I was absolutely horrified,” Brittle said. “I didn’t think anything like this could exist in America. It didn’t seem like it could be possible with the environmental laws.”

Brittle connected the Amparanos and other Hayden residents with a lawyer in Tempe, Ariz., Howard Shanker, who began pulling together a class-action lawsuit against Asarco. More than 200 people eventually signed on, alleging they had suffered health effects from Asarco’s noxious emissions. Shanker commissioned tests for lead and arsenic. “A lot of people” came back with high levels, he said. “Clearly, it was attributable to Asarco emissions and operations.” Asarco denied any responsibility.

The lawsuit dragged on. In 1999, researchers with the University of Arizona tested the blood of 14 infants and young children for lead and found “no evidence of excessive … exposure.” The same group found elevated levels of arsenic in the urine of five of 224 people tested and speculated that “exposure to house dust may have been a contributing factor.” The study was partially funded by Asarco, and some residents were leery of its findings.

In 2002, the Arizona Department of Health Services reported that the main worry in Hayden was spikes in sulfur dioxide that “occasionally pose a short-term health hazard to sensitive asthmatics. … Other exposures to contaminants in other environmental media do not appear to pose a public health hazard.”

In 2005, Asarco declared bankruptcy, effectively ending the lawsuit. The plaintiffs settled for a large amount of money overall, but an average of less than $10,000 per family. Not enough to move away. “There were people that tried and still couldn’t do it,” Betty Amparano said. “And people that did move out are starting to come back because of the economy.”

The EPA intervenes

Prodded by environmental activist Brittle and others, the EPA came to Hayden as the lawsuit was winding down. In 2007, before it ordered Asarco to start digging up soil, the agency found arsenic levels within safe limits in only one of 99 yards sampled. Seventeen of 22 attics yielded dust samples high in arsenic; 15 attics had dust high in copper, eight in lead.

Asarco, still in bankruptcy, agreed to set aside $13.5 million to fund the cleanup, which began in December 2008. At last count, soil from more than 266 yards had been dug up and replaced. In its statement to iWatch News, Asarco said it “has completed the cleanup of the soils on residential properties, public areas and vacant lots” in both Hayden and the adjoining town of Winkelman, “and, in doing so, achieved all the required cleanup levels.”

In July, however, the EPA notified Asarco that its plan for doing additional cleanup work in Hayden had “serious deficiencies,” including a lack of “meaningful” air sampling.

Several residents said that they, too, are unhappy with Asarco’s performance. In August, the company bought Monica Fernandez’s mother’s home, almost directly under a conveyor belt that carries crushed ore. “They had a big old crane that smashed the whole house,” Fernandez said. “All they did was knock it down, wet the dirt and put the rocks there.” The contamination, she suspects, is still there. “It has to be,” she said. “They covered it with the same dirt.”

Amid concerns about the cleanup, Asarco is seeking renewal of its air permit — its license to pollute. The federal government allows states to grant such permission, and ADEQ officials say they plan to affirm Asarco’s status as a minor source of hazardous air pollutants.

Asarco insists that it doesn’t meet the legal threshold for a major source: emissions of 10 tons per year of an individual chemical listed under the Clean Air Act amendments, or a combination of such chemicals totaling 25 tons annually. The company says it puts out a total of 14 tons of air toxics. And the highest amount of any one compound it reported emitting in 2010 — arsenic — was just 3.8 tons.

The EPA’s view is quite different – and could have significant implications. In its Nov. 10 finding of violation, the EPA argues that the Hayden smelter has been a major source since June 13, 2005, the date a federal pollution-control standard for copper smelters took effect. As of that date, the EPA alleges, “the Hayden Smelter had the potential to emit 10 [tons per year] or greater of Arsenic and Lead Compounds, individually, and 25 [tons per year] or greater of a combination of [hazardous air pollutants].”

Understating emissions can enable companies to avoid expensive fixes. Eric Schaeffer, former head of the EPA’s Office of Civil Enforcement, said Asarco is, in effect, being accused of dropping out of the regulatory system. “If you basically keep yourself out of the system, then you’re able to bypass [pollution] standards and avoid compliance and save a lot of money,” said Schaeffer, now executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, which litigates against polluters. “And that, obviously, is a fundamental violation of the Clean Air Act.”

In its statement, Asarco described the EPA action as “unexpected … [and] even more puzzling because our smelter is in compliance with its air permit. In Asarco’s view, the [finding of violation] is simply incorrect.”

ADEQ Director Henry Darwin said that Asarco’s new permit will force the company to make improvements. He expressed regret that it’s taken 10 years to act: “I fully acknowledge the fact that we should have issued [a permit with more stringent requirements] quicker than we have,” Darwin said.

“I do share your concern about what emissions from this smelter could be doing to that community. We’re not sitting idly by to see what Asarco’s going to do.”

Betty Amparano’s 32-year-old daughter, Jill Corona, is skeptical. Corona, a Hayden native who lives in Tempe, called the EPA’s action “bittersweet. In some ways, it’s great that the pollution problem is now finally being acknowledged. But for many years, it seemed to be implied that there was not really a problem.”

She worries about future generations. The EPA’s case against Asarco could be tied up in court for several years, with no guarantee that the government will prevail. And even if the Hayden area is deemed to be out of compliance with the federal air standard for lead, the state could have up to five years to bring down levels of the pollutant. In the meantime, exposures will continue.

“You know, I have a cousin who’s dying of cancer,” Corona said. “Whose health is being affected today? For the residents that are living [in Hayden] now, it’s not like a water faucet that gets shut off and that’s it, that’s the end of it and you’re done. It’s not that simple.”

Howard Berkes, NPR’s rural affairs correspondent, contributed to this story.

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Jim Morris

A journalist since 1978, Jim Morris has won more than 80 awards for his work, including the George Polk... More by Jim Morris