ASARCO

[2] On January 11, 1916, sixteen ASARCO employees were killed and mutilated by Pancho Villa's men near the town of Santa Isabel, Chihuahua.

It was one of the incidents that sparked the Mexican Expedition, a United States Army attempt to capture or kill Villa.

Based in Tucson, Arizona, the company grew to conduct mining, smelting, and refining of primarily copper.

On August 9, 2005, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Corpus Christi,[3] Texas under then-president Daniel Tellechea.

As of 2019, ASARCO operates two primary locations in the United States, a mining and smelting complex in Arizona and a copper refinery in Amarillo, Texas.

In 1995 ASARCO submitted a demolition and site cleanup plan to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality for their impact on the local residential area.

Fined $3.6 million in 1996 for discharging lead and other pollutants into the Missouri River, ASARCO closed its Omaha plant in July 1997.

Contamination had affected Lake Coeur d'Alene and the Saint Joe River, as well as related waters and lands, and cleanup had been under way since the early 1980s.

This would provide ample time for the EPA, in close coordination with ADEQ, to enter an agreement with ASARCO to conduct remedial actions..."[15] After emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2008, ASARCO made a settlement with the government of $1.79 billion for contamination at various sites; the funds were allotted to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for cleanup at 26 sites around the country.

[1] A final settlement for $1.79 billion was made in 2009 for up 80 sites, including one of the most notorious, the smelting plant at El Paso, Texas, for which cleanup was set to start in 2010.