Superfund, Montanans’ Cleanup Demands Clash at Supreme Court

Atlantic Richfield Co. and a group of Montana landowners go head to head at the Supreme Court this week in a case that could shake up the EPA’s nearly 40-year-old flagship toxic waste cleanup program.

About 100 landowners in Opportunity, Mont., say Atlantic Richfield Co. is responsible for continuing to remove lead and arsenic deposited on their properties through decades of copper smelting operations.

The company and the Environmental Protection Agency have spent more than three decades cleaning up the 300-square-mile Anaconda Co. Smelter Superfund site, but the landowners say harmful amounts of heavy metals remain. They went to state ...