CNN said that Anadarko Petroleum has agreed to pay $5.15 billion to the US as a settlement from all the claims filed against Kerr-McGee, the conglomerate acquired by the former in 2006. The settlement was touted as the biggest environmental enforcement recovery in history by the US Justice Department. The settlement was for Kerr-McGee's uranium mining business, which had contaminated places across the US.
Kerr-McGee's uranium mining unit had reportedly left radioactive uranium waste in the Navajo Nation and contaminated one part of Illinois with the deadly radioactive thorium, CNN said. Kerr-McGee also contaminated sites in South Dakota, New Jersey and Missouri. In 2005 and the following year, Kerr-McGee began to transfer all of its valuable oil and gas exploration assets into a new corporation, and was later acquired by Anadarko. The environmental liabilities were reportedly left with the old company, which had later renamed itself to Tronox.
Because of the debts acquired no less because of the contamination, Tronox had filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, CNN said. Tronox's bankruptcy estate along with the US government sued Anadarko after, and claimed that Kerr-McGee intended to split from its original company in order to avoid paying up for clean-up costs.
US Attorney Preet Bharara had said in a statement, "If you are responsible for 85 years of poisoning the earth, then you are responsible for cleaning it up. The company tried to cleanse its valuable business from its toxic legacy liabilities. Now the defendants will pay to cleanse the land and water."
According to a federal bankruptcy court ruling in December, Anadarko owed damages amounting from $5.15 billion and $14.12 billion, and that the minimum amount is how much the company could be forced to pay.
Anadarko President Al Walker said in a statement about the settlement, "(The settlement) eliminates the uncertainty this dispute has created."
