Murray Smelter NPL Site

AO Bureau

Also Known As

None

Incident Type

Mining

State

Utah

Case Status

Restoration

Location

Salt Lake County

Authority

Contaminants of Concern Include

Affected DOI Resources Include

Migratory Birds

Case Description

Murray Smelter was one of several smelters in the Salt Lake Valley that processed metal ores mined from the Wasatch Mountains on the east side of the valley beginning in 1872. The smelter was operated by ASARCO from 1902 to 1949. Although the smelter was closed in the early 1950's, its tailings and slag piles remained a source of heavy metals such as lead and arsenic to nearby Little Cottonwood Creek (a tributary of the Jordan River) until the site was cleaned up in the late 1990's. The site was proposed for listing on the CERCLIS in 1994, but that listing was never finalized. Instead, the site's property owners, the EPA and the State of Utah initiated a voluntary cleanup as part of a large healthcare and commercial redevelopment project. Remediation was completed in 2001. The site's new owners negotiated a prospective purchasers' agreement with EPA and DOI that provided $30,000 for restoration, with the stipulation that the funds must be spent within the city of Murray Utah. Currently the FWS and DOI are completing restoration planning for the Murray Smelter Restoration funds, with the preferred alternative consisting of providing funds to Salt Lake County, Utah, to provide for instream and riparian buffer restoration (i.e., instream hydrologic improvements, riparian vegetation, etc.) on about 800 linear feet of the Jordan River near an educational nature center in Murray, Utah. It is expected that the restoration plan will be completed by mid-2018, with work anticipated to start in late 2018 and be completed in early 2019. A restoration monitoring plan is being developed in conjunction with the completion of the Sharon Steel Restoration that will support citizen science-based monitoring on the Jordan River in the three locations that have been restored using funds from these settlements.
 Document TypeDocument NameDocument Date

Restoration

 Restoration Plan Final Restoration Plan 12/01/2018

Settlement

 Consent Decree Final Consent Decree 05/01/1998

Financial

 Funding Request Memo Funding Allocation Memo for Murray Smelter NPL Site 12/10/2018
 

No publications have been entered for this case.

Map View

Case Contact

Utah Ecological Services Field Office

West Valley City, UT | (801) 975-3330 | http://www.fws.gov/utahfieldoffice/

Associated Restoration Projects

Case Trustees

AO Bureau

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