The Atlantic Richfield energy corporation won a reversal of a Montana Supreme Court ruling that the company had to do more to clean up a toxic site polluted by mercury, the US Supreme Court said on Monday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th April, 2020) The Atlantic Richfield energy corporation won a reversal of a Montana Supreme Court ruling that the company had to do more to clean up a toxic site polluted by mercury, the US Supreme Court said on Monday.
The site owners had argued that Atlantic Richfield did not do enough to clean the toxic mercury and attempted a decontamination without obtaining Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approval while also seeking restorative damages.
"The Montana Supreme Court erred in holding that the landowners were not potentially responsible partners ... and therefore did not need to accept EPA approval," the US Supreme Court said.
Montana law did require that any award of restoration damages should be used to repair the damaged property at issue. However, such action cannot be taken in the absence of EPA approval, the justices pointed out in the ruling.
The US Supreme Court therefore reversed the Montana court ruling and stated that the landowners were not permitted to go ahead with their own efforts to decontaminate their own property near the site of the former metals smelter plant without EPA approval.
Atlantic Richfield is owned by the oil giant BP and is located in a 300-mile heavily Superfund site, which the company says it has already spent $470 million to remove pollutants, according to published reports.
