Largest Power Company in Texas Settles Uranium Mine Dispute in New Mexico on the cheap
Energy Future Holdings, Texas' largest power company, would pay the federal government up to $2 million to help clean up long-abandoned uranium mines in northwest New Mexico, under a settlement filed late Tuesday.
And under the agreement, the U.S. Department of Justice would drop its objection to the companys plan to emerge from one of the biggest bankruptcies in American history.
Energy Future would pay far less than the $23 million the justice department originally sought on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency for cleaning up the toxic legacy of four uranium mines in New Mexicos McKinley County. The sites, active during the 1970s and 1980s, left local land and water highly radioactive, according to court filings.
Two companies that no longer exist produced thousands of tons of uranium ore at the mines: Texas Utilities Fuel Company (later named TXU Fuel Company) and Chaco Energy Company, TXU's New Mexico subsidiary. Both companies were Energy Future properties when they dissolved last decade, shifting their liabilities to the conglomerate, according to the justice departments initial objection to the companys reorganization plan.
Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2015/12/02/energy-future-settles-with-feds-in-mine-cleanup/
Cross-posted in the Texas Group.