Upper Clark Fork River Basin: Montana v. ARCO Settlements
In 1983, the State of Montana filed a lawsuit against the Atlantic Richfield Co. (ARCO) for injuries to the natural resources in the Upper Clark Fork River Basin. The lawsuit, brought under federal and state Superfund laws, sought damages from ARCO, contending that decades of mining and smelting in the Butte and Anaconda areas had greatly harmed natural resources in the basin and deprived Montanans of their use.
In 1989, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed another lawsuit to establish ARCO’s liability for remedial cleanup of the basin. The state has settled its lawsuit through a series of settlement agreements completed in 1999, 2005 and 2008.