Editing ARCO (section)

===Anaconda Copper===
ARCO merged with [[Anaconda Copper|Anaconda Copper Mining Company]] of [[Montana]] in 1977. Anaconda's holdings included the [[Berkeley Pit]] and the [[Anaconda, Montana]] Smelter. ARCO founder [[Robert Orville Anderson]] stated "he hoped Anaconda's resources and expertise would help him launch a major [[Shale oil extraction|shale-oil venture]], but that the world [[1980s oil glut|oil glut]] and the declining [[price of petroleum]] made [[shale oil]] moot".<ref>{{cite magazine |title=The U.S. Business Hall of Fame| magazine= Fortune | date= 1986-04-14 | url=https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1986/04/14/67377/index.htm| author=Arthur M. Louis research associate Rosalind Klein Berlin}}</ref> The purchase turned out to be a regrettable decision for ARCO. A lack of experience with hard-rock mining and a sudden drop in the price of [[copper]] to below seventy cents a pound, the lowest in years, caused ARCO to suspend all operations in [[Butte, Montana]]. By 1983, only six years after acquiring rights to the "[[Richest hill on earth|Richest Hill on Earth]]", the Berkeley Pit was completely idle. By 1986, some ARCO properties were sold to billionaire industrialist [[Dennis Washington]], whose company, Montana Resources, operates a much smaller open-pit mine east of the defunct Berkeley Pit.

====Superfund site====
ARCO was the responsible party (by its ownership of Anaconda Copper at the time operations were terminated) for the largest U.S. [[Superfund]] [[Berkeley Pit|site]]—a site that takes in the towns of Butte and Anaconda, and {{convert|120|mi|km}} of the [[Clark Fork River]] including [[Milltown Dam]]. The region's water and soil were polluted by a century of mining and smelting. Chemicals of concern include many heavy metals and arsenic.  On 7 February 2008, the [[United States Environmental Protection Agency]] announced that prolonged litigation with ARCO ended when ARCO agreed to pay $187 million to finance natural resource restoration activities.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/CE166ABD9B8E9A76852573E8005C762B |title=Atlantic Richfield Company agrees to pay $187M for Montana Superfund Cleanup &#124; Newsroom &#124; US EPA |publisher=Yosemite.epa.gov |date=2008-02-07 |access-date=2013-02-18}}</ref>  Anaconda Copper still nominally exists, but only as a massive environmental liability for BP.

Atlantic Richfield Co and its then parent BP America agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by about 700 current and former residents of Yerington, Nevada, who lived near the Anaconda mine built in 1941. The company paid in Nevada up to $19.5M for settlement. EPA tested in 2009 wells and found that 79% of the wells north of mine had dangerous levels of uranium and/or arsenic.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/06/nevada-toxic-waste-lawsuit-residents-19m Nevada residents win $19.5m settlement in toxic waste leak lawsuit] The Guardian 7 November 2013</ref>