Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc, a copper producer in Phoenix, is facing a class-action lawsuit filed on Monday over a cleanup of environmental hazards left in Blackwell, Oklahoma.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the community’s approximately 7,000 residents. The community is asking Freeport to clean up Blackwell property contaminated by a zinc mill that operated in the area from 1916 to 1974.
The class-action lawsuit is not seeking for specific damages but wants Freeport to compensate residents for lost property values due to pollution. It also wants the company to set up a medical-monitoring program to assess the citizen’s health.
Aside from contamination from the smoke tacks, the residents complain that there are hazardous materials spread over the area.
According to Eric Wetzel, a spokesman for Nix, Patterson & Roach LP, the Daingerfield, Texas law firm handling the case, the recent tests conducted by the firm found that 76 percent of Blackwell homes contain lead dust above safety levels set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and 90 percent have arsenic above EPA safety standards.
Contaminated sites include the Blackwell Industrial Park built on the site of the old smelter, the First Baptist Church parking lot, and the running track at Blackwell High School.
Remediation work is already progress but residents are frustrated with the pace of the cleanup and by the standards set by the Oklahoma Department of Environmental of Quality.