This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

The Environmental Protection Agency filed — and quickly settled — a federal lawsuit Wednesday against a refinery company whose Tooele County plant released lead and arsenic into the soil.

Atlantic Richfield Company Inc. (ARCO) agreed to pay just over $560,000 to reimburse the federal agency for its cleanup efforts at the former smelting site. The consent decree, signed by both parties, will be open to public comment for 30 days before a federal judge will enter or revise the settlement.

International Smelting and Refining Co., the facility's original owner, processed copper at the site on the western slope of the Oquirrh Mountains, beginning in 1910; a lead smelter and zinc treatments joined the operations after a change in ownership. Copper production, though, stopped in 1946, and lead smelting ended there when the operation was demolished in 1972.

"These activities resulted in the creation of large amounts of waste materials containing heavy metals, including lead and arsenic," the lawsuit states, "at concentrations that threatened human health and the environment."

In 1977, ARCO acquired the land after a series of corporate mergers and has owned it since. Testing in the area, though, led the EPA to add it to its national priorities list for hazardous waste cleanup in July 2000.

The federal agency ordered the company to remove the metals from the plant and adjacent residential properties from 2003 to 2008. The area was deemed "successfully remediated" by May 2011, though it continues to be monitored for operations maintenance.

In its lawsuit, the EPA alleges that the company failed to reimburse the agency for costs related to the cleanup — "investigations, monitoring, assessing, testing, enforcement and removal activities" — that the federal government incurred "to protect the public health, welfare and the environment."

The company agreed to pay the $560,000 in fees within 30 days of the judge filing an order. The refinery will be responsible for undetermined future costs associated with periodic testing.

Twitter: @CourtneyLTanner