US Update!
Published by MAC on 2006-10-11
US Update
11th October 2006
EPA: Copper company burned dangerous waste
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- A bankrupt U.S. copper company, Asarco, is being accused of pretending to recycle metals while actually burning hazardous waste.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the company, which was facing billions of dollars in pollution claims across the nation, burned the hazardous waste in an El Paso, Texas, smelter, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The EPA, in a 1998 internal memorandum, said Asarco and its Corpus Christi, Texas, subsidiary, Encycle, used a permit to extract metals from hazardous waste products as a cover to burn the waste until the late 1990's, saving the high costs of proper disposal.
"This activity, plain and simple, was illegal treatment and disposal of hazardous waste," the EPA said in the previously confidential memorandum that was obtained by two El Paso environmental groups and given to The New York Times. "Encycle's own business records provide compelling evidence of sham recycling."
Asarco, founded in 1899 as the American Smelting and Refining Co., was purchased by Mexican interests [Grupo Mexico] in 1999. It has been the target of federal, state and local complaints involving at least 94 sites in 21 states, the newspaper said.