Do settlement communications, such as past “agreements in principle,” impact the implementation of the final Consent Decrees?

The parties are bound by the terms of the various final, publicly available consent decrees. These consent decrees were made available for public comment before they were finalized and entered by the Court. Past settlement communications and documents created in the course of settlement discussions have been incorporated (or not) into the final consent decrees. Anything not in the final court-approved and publicly available consent decrees was not presented to the Court and is not binding on the parties.

In 2011, EPA issued a unilateral administrative order (UAO) to implement parts of the 2006 Butte Priority Soils Record of Decision for the portions of the cleanup where there was agreement between EPA and the State of Montana.

• 2011 Butte Priority Soils Unilateral Administrative Order (pdf) (134 pp, 30.6 MB)

In January 2018, EPA, the U.S. Department of Justice, Montana DEQ, Butte Silver Bow, and the Atlantic Richfield Company reached a conceptual agreement to address future cleanup work at the site.