February 14, 2012 - Environmental Resources Management, Inc. (ERM) and its demolition practice takes an innovative approach to recycling and waste management on its projects. Instead of accepting the premise that most materials will be classified as construction debris or wastes that will have to be disposed of in a landfill, ERM dedicates itself to determining alternate end uses for such materials in line with its principles on sustainability. An ideal example of how ERM implemented this philosophy is the demolition of the former ASARCO smelter in El Paso, Texas, USA.  Smelting operations at the site began in 1887. For a century, the facility conducted operations that included, in addition to lead and copper smelting, cadmium oxide production, zinc recovery, and sulphuric acid refining until the mid-1990s. In 1994 and 1995, after a series of compliance inspections, the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC) determined unauthorised discharges of solid waste, wastewater, and storm water had occurred at the site.  On May 20, 2005, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) issued a Corrective Action Directive to ASARCO to conduct remedial action for the El Paso site. That same year, ASARCO and related entities declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As a result of the bankruptcy proceedings, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas in Corpus Christi issued an order confirming the plan of reorganisation. On December 9, 2009, ASARCO placed US$52 million (€40.2 million) in an environmental custodial trust to address remedial activities. The Texas Custodial Trust was formed and appointed Roberto Puga of Project Navigator LTD as trustee.

Defining the task

Roberto awarded ERM the contract to decommission, decontaminate and demolish the site. He established goals of addressing the concerns of the citizens of El Paso that the demolition would be conducted in a regulatory compliant manner and to increase the funds available to the trust such that additional remedial measures not originally included in the settlement could be performed. ERM was selected based on its history and reputation on conducting safe, environmentally conscious work, as well as identifying, developing, and executing plans for disposition of the abandoned assets onsite.  The ERM team, led by Robert Klotzbach and Jeff Bauguss, immediately began to develop an approach that would incorporate ERM's value of sustainability into all aspects of the project. This started with addressing the effects of site work on the environment and the surrounding community, followed by a monetary valuation of all hard assets onsite based on inventories provided by the bankruptcy proceedings and physical inspections of the site.  Site assessments showed significant levels of heavy metals resulting from decades of various smelting operations in the soil and dust within the entire footprint of the facility. As a result, continuous dust monitoring, dust suppression and asset decontamination occurred throughout demolition activities as a part of the site's Community Assurance Plan.  To verify that site operations did not affect the surrounding community, ERM worked to develop a perimeter dust monitoring program. The plan included placing dust monitors around the site that provided 24-hour real time data on dust levels. As part of the ERM goal to deliver sustainable solutions, the dust equipment was powered using renewable energy, with each monitor fastened with an individual solar panel.  Another preventative measure ERM utilised to minimise the effects of the work on the environment was to recycle all captured water on site. Due to the region's arid conditions, dust suppression was a continuous task during activities. Another issue ERM faced was the need to remove visible lose soil and dust accumulations from recyclable materials to reduce the potential for impacted dusts to be released during transport offsite. These processes required large quantities of water, which is a precious commodity for the local community of El Paso, Texas, due to the dry conditions of the Chihuahua Desert.

Water reuse

Prior to ERM's involvement, site management released all captured storm water per the site's storm water permit. The team made the decision to utilise this water for decontamination purposes to reduce the impact on the city of El Paso water supply. ERM designed a filtration system to treat the captured waters from the decontamination procedures and dust suppression to make the water available for reuse in the same task. This dedication to recycling not only reduced the site's impact on the city's water supply but also provided cost savings to the client and the contractors.  As part of the valuation of assets, ERM focused on two unique areas of the site to identify and for which to develop markets for potential reusable assets. These areas were: the acid production plants and the copper process furnaces.  As a by-product to the copper smelting process, sulphate gases were created. In order to reduce the amount emitted into the air, ASARCO collected, cooled, and refined the gases to produce sulphuric acid, a sellable commodity. There were two acid plants in the facility. From these, two commodities were developed, harvested and recycled to the financial benefit of the client. The first asset identified was the lead metal used in the electrostatic precipitators. There were 12 units within the two plants, which provided over 600,000 kg (1.3 million lb) of recyclable lead metal, the funds of which were directly added to the site trust fund.  The second commodity from the acid plants was abandoned low-grade sulphuric acid that remained in multiple tanks within the systems. Usually, this type of substance is neutralised at a very high cost in materials and labour. ERM worked diligently to find a market for the acid and succeeded. The overall net savings to the client by removing the neutralising process was approximately US$250,000 (€193,000).

Copper bottomed

ERM then addressed the idled copper production facility. Through site investigation and research of historical documents, the presence of a potentially large amount of copper matte was discovered in and below the two furnaces on site.  Both furnaces were demolished to expose the refractory brick oven portion of the structure. Once this was accomplished, the refractory was carefully peeled back to reveal the copper matte material. The refractory was taken to a storage facility onsite to be tested for metal content and inventoried for possible reclamation. The copper matte material was excavated and removed, and was also tested for metal content and inventoried.  The demolition of the furnaces allowed for the recovery of the copper cooling jackets, which were sold for US$1.8 million (€1.4 million). The copper matte material excavated from the furnaces amounted to approximately 12,240 m³ (432,000 ft³) of material that will yield approximately 3,175 tonnes (3,500 tons) of copper, 1,250 kg (2,750 lb) of silver and 34 kg (74.8 lb) of gold. The material was sold for US$15 million (€11.5 million). Completion of a contract for the approximately 6,117 m³ (216,000 ft³) of refractory will yield additional funds for the trust while reducing the amount of material destined for land disposal.  At the time of writing, the project has returned over US$25 million (€19.3 million) to the trust to augment the US$52 million that was originally in the trust. This increase in revenue will allow the project to enhance the remedial actions and extend the cleanup far beyond the original plans.

July 12, 2011 - Originally scheduled to fall this week, the demolition of one of Asarco’s smallest smokestacks will now happen in September, while the iconic 826-foot-tall smokestack is expected to come down on schedule the first quarter of next year, says Robert Puga, the trustee in charge of the site.  The first stack to be demolished, is the rusting, 300-foot smokestack that used to be part of an acid plant attached to the copper smelter. That plant was created in the early 1970s after the passage of the Clean Air Act in Texas.  The system scrubbed the sulfur from the fumes that poured from the smelter’s stack and turned it into sulfuric acid, which the company sold.  Piece by piece, the former Asarco plant is disappearing.  A 35-person crew is working day in and day out to demolish the former copper smelter and the job is almost 30 percent finished, according to Puga. The demolition is being done by Brandenburg Industrial Service Co., headquartered in Chicago.  “The landscape out there is changing dramatically,” Puga says.  The trust expects to have all the demolition done, except for the two large stacks on the site, by the end of this year.  Most visibly, the large tanks that used to store the sulfuric acid have been taken down, and the large buildings on the site are scheduled for demolition soon, according to Puga.  When the demolition is done, all the structures on the site but two will be gone. The administrative building and power generation building will be preserved.

Millions from scrap - The sales of various scrap metals recently taken from the site during the demolition have boosted the fund set aside for the site’s remediation by millions of dollars.  To help pay for the cleanup of the 120-acre main smelter site, a trust of $52 million was put aside in the $1.8-billion Asarco bankruptcy settlement, reached in 2009.  While $9 million was earmarked for demolition, because of a strong market for steel scrap, Puga says they were able to broker a deal where Brandenburg did the demolition at no cost and paid $1 million for the scrap metal.  Puga says they have also sold a full load of ore that had been left on the site for $10 million and scrap lead for $1 million. The copper will be crushed in Mexico and then sold to Chinese end users. The lead has been slated for use in the manufacture of automobile batteries, according to a press release.  In March, the trust received $1.9 million from the sale of Asarco’s oxygen plant to a buyer in Australia who will dismantle the plant and re-erect it for use in Africa, according to a release.  The extra funds will allow the Asarco Trust to take the remediation a step further, restoring the arroyo, named the Parker Brothers Arroyo, that runs through the property.   A community meeting will be held in October to discuss the demolition of the large stack, Puga says. That stack is slated to come down the first quarter of next year.

Updates can be found on the Asarco Trust’s website, www.RecastingTheSmelter.com.

July 17, 2009 - Asarco LLC, which is in bankruptcy, paid its top executive a salary of a half-million dollars.  Tucson-based Asarco said in its recent disclosure statement that it was profitable in 2007 and had $1 billion cash in the bank.   The court document stated that Asarco's CEO and president, Joseph F. Lapinsky, receives a base salary of $500,000, four weeks of paid vacation per year, a company vehicle and other benefits.  "Mr. Lapinsky received a one-time 'extraordinary performance bonus' of $85,000 in October 2007," two years after Asarco's bankruptcy filing, the document said.  Douglas E. McAllister, Asarco's executive vice president and general counsel, who served previously as interim CEO, receives an annual salary of $266,520. Each of the company's three board directors receives $100,000 annually.   Asarco's statement also showed that it settled more than 1,100 toxic tort claims and asbestos lawsuits, including several in El Paso, where it operated a smelter until 1999.  The 997-page document, filed with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Corpus Christi, provides details about the company's operations, environmental problems and expenditures. A mining, smelting and refining company, Asarco sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2005. As of March, it reported having $1.3 billion in cash and cash equivalents, according to the court document, which became public this month.  At one point, environmental lawsuits against Asarco represented a combined $1.4 billion in potential liabilities, but most of them have been settled. Asarco faced 1,380 toxic tort claims linked to several of its operations across the nation. About $2.3 million went to settle an undisclosed number of cases in El Paso. At least two lawsuits were filed against Asarco in El Paso that alleged lead poisoning in children. Both were settled last year. In one, the El Paso Independent School District had alleged harm to property, according to El Paso court documents. As of January, Asarco had reduced its number of unresolved toxic tort claims to 218. Those do not include millions of dollars worth of asbestos-related claims. The court document also revealed that Asarco was authorized to sell 125.9 acres in West El Paso to Megacon LLC for $4.1 million. In addition, tests in El Paso to determine the smelter's impact on groundwater have been completed. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is reviewing a proposed treatment plan to deal with contamination caused by the smelter. Asarco said it was forced to seek bankruptcy protection four years ago because of a downturn in copper prices, a labor strike, a $440 million bond debt and potentially expensive environmental and asbestos lawsuits. The El Paso plant, which opened in 1887 as a lead smelter, produced zinc, antimony, arsenic, sulfuric acid and copper. After 1985, it was used to smelt copper and produce sulfuric acid. Asarco closed the plant 10 years ago. TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said the agency is expected to select a trustee by August to oversee the $52 million cleanup of Asarco's El Paso smelter. In the bankruptcy case, three companies have bid for Asarco.

February 3, 2009 - Asarco LLC informed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) that it does not intend to reopen it El Paso, Texas Copper Plant.  The decision is based on the dramatic downturn of the world economy in the last six months.  Asarco is working with the state of Texas to fund a custodial trust for the demolition of the plant and remediation of the site.  Any custodial trust must be approved by the bankruptcy court that is overseeing Asarco’s reorganization effort.  Today’s decision will not affect Asarco’s operating copper refinery in Amarillo, Texas.