TopClassActions  |  October 24, 2013

Category: Legal News

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Judge OKs $19.5M ARCO Anaconda Groundwater Contamination Class Action Settlement

By Anne Bucher

 


Arco class action settlementOn Monday, Oct. 21, a Nevada federal judge approved class action settlement that could be worth as much as $9.5 million, which will resolve a dispute between residents of a Nevada city, Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) and BP America Inc. over groundwater contamination from operations at the Anaconda copper mine, a Superfund site.

U.S. District Judge Robert C. Jones certified a property damage settlement class and a medical monitoring settlement class. The class action settlement will provide Class Members with about $7 million in payments.

The class action settlement will put an end to a 2011 class action lawsuit filed by Yerington, Nevada property owners and residents against ARCO and BP, alleging hazardous substances including arsenic and uranium from the Anaconda copper mine site leaked into the groundwater, damaging property and contaminating the drinking water. As a result of this contamination, residents say they will require future medical monitoring for exposure to the contaminants.

 

Judge Jones found that the deal had been fairly and honestly negotiated, and that the class action settlement would be the best way to resolve the dispute. “In this court’s view, after reviewing the entire matter, there are several apparently undisputed facts as well as serious disputed questions of law and fact that place the outcome of this litigation, if tried rather than settled, in substantial doubt,” the judge said. “This court concurs with the parties and their counsel that there is risk for each side of an adverse outcome at trial.”

Under the terms of the class action settlement, ARCO and BP agreed to fund the extension of the city of Yerington water system for residences in the area that currently have no access to city water. The estimated cost of this expansion ranges from $6.5 million to $12.5 million. The settlement also allows property owners with a domestic well to obtain water rights at the defendants’ expense, which would allow the well owners to maintain use of their wells for non-potable uses once their properties are connected to the city water supply.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), copper was discovered in the Yerington District in 1865. Operations at the site began in 1918. Anaconda Minerals purchased the Mine in 1941. ARCO purchased Anaconda Minerals in 1977 and owned the mine until 1982, when ARCO sold the mine to Don Tibbals, a local resident. Tibbals sold most of his interest to Arimetco Inc. in 1988. Arimetco abandoned the site in 2000, the same year ARCO was acquired by a unit of BP. BP sold its ARCO assets to Tesoro Corp. earlier this year.

 

Superfund is a federal program designed to clean up the nation’s uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. Nevada requested the EPA to use its Superfund authority to clean up the Anaconda copper mine site in 2005.

 

In April 2011, the EPA and ARCO reached a $1 million settlement over cleanup costs at the Nevada Superfund site. To date, the federal agency has recouped a total of $6 million in cleanup costs from the companies responsible for the groundwater contamination.

 

The plaintiffs are represented by Howard A. Janet, Robert K. Jenner, Kenneth M. Suggs and Leah K. Barron of Janet Jenner & Suggs LLC; Joel Rubenstein and Steven J. German of German Rubenstein LLP; Allan Kanner and Elizabeth B. Petersen of Kanner & Whiteley LLC; and Kent R. Robison and Kristen Martini of Robison Belaustegui Sharp and Low.

 

The ARCO Anaconda Groundwater Contamination Class Action Lawsuit is Philip Roeder, et al. v. Atlantic Richfield Co., et al., Case No. 3:11-cv-00105, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

 

 

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