The Environmental Settlement Cole Announced: $5.15B Cleanup

The Anadarko Kerr-McGee environmental settlement is a $5.15 billion agreement announced by the U.S. Department of Justice and EPA in April 2014, resolving a fraudulent-transfer lawsuit that federal courts found was designed to let Kerr-McGee walk away from 85 years of pollution liability. Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole called it the largest recovery for environmental contamination cleanup in American history.¹ The money funds cleanup at more than 2,700 sites across 47 states, including federal Superfund sites and dozens of abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo Nation.

The Spinoff That Triggered the Lawsuit

Kerr-McGee Corporation had spent decades running chemical plants, uranium mines, wood-treating operations, and nuclear fuel facilities, and had accumulated what a bankruptcy judge later described as massive legacy liabilities across thousands of locations.² Starting around 2001, management looked for a way to detach its profitable oil and gas business from that history. Internal documents showed executives wanted to “rid the E&P Business of cumbersome environmental liabilities,” and one advisor’s presentation depicted those obligations as a “weed” choking a “flower.”³

Between 2002 and 2005, Kerr-McGee moved its valuable oil and gas assets into a new entity that kept the Kerr-McGee name. The original company, now holding only the environmental liabilities, was renamed Tronox and spun off in 2006. That same year, Anadarko Petroleum bought the “clean” Kerr-McGee for $18 billion.⁴ Before Tronox was cut loose, it was loaded with $450 million in secured debt and $350 million in unsecured notes, and forced to pay nearly all of its cash back to the new Kerr-McGee.³

By 2009, Tronox was insolvent and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It sued Anadarko and Kerr-McGee that May, alleging the whole restructuring was a fraudulent transfer meant to shed environmental obligations. The Justice Department intervened the following month to recover federal cleanup costs.⁵

The Ruling That Forced the Payment

After a 34-day trial, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan L. Gropper of the Southern District of New York issued his decision on December 12, 2013. He found “clear and convincing evidence” that Kerr-McGee had acted with intent to “hinder or delay creditors” by transferring assets for less than fair value, leaving Tronox insolvent and undercapitalized.⁶ The court collapsed years of separate transactions into a “single integrated scheme” and rejected the company’s argument that the spinoff was ordinary shareholder-value work. Gropper wrote that there was “no dispute that Kerr-McGee acted to free substantially all its assets from 85 years of environmental and tort liabilities.”⁴

The court calculated the net value of fraudulently transferred assets at $14.459 billion. Because of complex bankruptcy offset calculations, the final damages figure ranged between $5.15 billion and roughly $14.2 billion, depending on how a technical question about creditor recovery percentages was resolved.⁶ The parties settled at the low end of that range before the question was litigated further.

The Settlement Cole Announced

On April 3, 2014, Cole announced the $5.15 billion agreement at a Justice Department press conference. He told reporters the deal “provides us with recovery now, as opposed to years and years down the road.”⁷ U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office in the Southern District of New York helped lead the litigation, added: “Corporations may not pursue profit at the expense of public health. They may not hide from their responsibilities through corporate shell-games. And they may not rely on bankruptcy to push the cost of their misconduct onto the American taxpayer.”⁸

Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan approved the settlement on November 10, 2014.⁸ With no appeal filed, the deal took effect on January 21, 2015. Two days later, Anadarko paid the full amount plus interest into a litigation trust.² Anadarko CEO Al Walker said the deal “eliminates the uncertainty this dispute has created” and would fund the remediation of Kerr-McGee’s legacy contamination.⁹

Where the $5.15 Billion Went

Roughly $4.475 billion of the settlement went to environmental beneficiaries and about $605 million to tort claimants, following an 88-to-12 percent split established in an earlier 2011 bankruptcy settlement.² The environmental share was divided three ways:

About 25.4 percent to a Multistate Environmental Response Trust, funding cleanup at former Kerr-McGee sites across 31 states.
About 28.1 percent to four site-specific trusts, with the largest allocation (25 percent of the environmental share on its own) going to a chemical site in Henderson, Nevada, and smaller amounts for the Cimarron nuclear site in Oklahoma, a Savannah, Georgia site, and a West Chicago, Illinois site.
About 46.5 percent to other sites and claims, covering the EPA, state environmental agencies, the Navajo Nation, the Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. Within this category, 20 percent was earmarked for uranium mine cleanup on or near Navajo Nation lands.²

In dollar terms, the DOJ estimated roughly $985 million for the EPA to clean up about 50 abandoned uranium mines, about $1.1 billion for the Henderson, Nevada chemical site trust, another $1.1 billion for a trust covering two dozen contaminated sites, roughly $224 million for the Welsbach Superfund site in New Jersey, and about $217 million to repay federal Superfund costs at the Federal Creosote site, also in New Jersey.⁴

What the Cleanup Looks Like a Decade Later

Navajo Nation Uranium Mines

Between 1944 and 1986, nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted from Navajo lands, largely for the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Many Navajo people worked in the mines or lived nearby without being warned of the health risks, even though scientific evidence of those dangers existed by the late 1930s. A study of 757 non-white miners, mostly Navajo, found 34 lung cancer deaths, more than three times the expected number.¹⁰

More than 500 abandoned uranium mines remain on and near the reservation. Studies of unregulated wells found many exceeded federal drinking water standards for uranium and arsenic, and nearly 30 percent of Navajo households have had to haul water from outside sources. The EPA has designated 46 mines as priority sites.¹¹ A March 2026 Navajo Nation Council report described remediation progress as “limited.” Of the more than 50 mines the settlement was intended to address, one site in the Cove area has been capped, and the EPA has briefed tribal leadership on plans to consolidate contaminated material at three of 88 sites in the Lukachukai Mountain Mining District at an estimated cost of $13 million. Navajo leaders and the EPA disagree over a proposed waste repository at Thoreau Red Rock; the Eastern Navajo Land Commission says it lacks full tribal support, while EPA Region 9 considers it the “most viable option.”¹² A federal Ten-Year Plan running from 2020 to 2029 guides the broader cleanup.

Henderson, Nevada

The former Kerr-McGee facility at the Black Mountain Industrial complex produced perchlorate, a rocket fuel component, which contaminated groundwater flowing toward the Las Vegas Wash and Lake Mead. Perchlorate levels in Lake Mead fell from about 10 parts per billion in 2001 to 1.2 parts per billion by 2014 under a pump-and-treat system running since 1987.¹³ The Nevada Environmental Response Trust now manages remediation, and by 2025 the extraction system had removed approximately 13.3 million pounds of perchlorate, reducing contamination entering the Las Vegas Wash by more than 90 percent compared to 2000 levels. The site’s groundwater is not a source of drinking water for the City of Henderson.¹⁴

Cimarron Nuclear Site, Oklahoma

The Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site near Crescent, Oklahoma, produced nuclear fuel from 1965 to 1975 under contract with the Atomic Energy Commission. Decommissioning began in 1975, but uranium remains in groundwater that discharges into the Cimarron River.¹⁵ The Cimarron Environmental Response Trust, funded with more than $85 million from the Tronox bankruptcy and Anadarko settlements, is now handling long-term groundwater remediation. Construction began in October 2025 and is expected to finish in late 2026, though the site’s estimated closure date is 2039.¹⁶

Welsbach and Other Sites

The Welsbach and General Gas Mantle Superfund site in Camden and Gloucester City, New Jersey, involves thorium contamination from gas mantle manufacturing between the 1890s and 1940s. Radioactive fill was spread throughout both cities. The EPA has investigated nearly 1,521 properties, found 211 contaminated, and completed cleanup on 184. More than 400,000 tons of radiologically contaminated soil and waste have been excavated. A January 2025 amendment modified excavation depths, and a 2024 decision authorized purchasing properties in Gloucester City and permanently relocating residents whose homes were structurally compromised.¹⁷

In Columbus, Mississippi, a 90-acre facility that made pressure-treated railroad products using creosote from 1928 to 2003 is managed by the Multistate Environmental Response Trust. The EPA added the site to the Superfund National Priorities List in 2011. Cleanup of off-site properties was completed in 2024, and cleanup plans for remaining sections of the former plant were issued in 2024 and 2025. By 2025, the trust’s cleanup account for Columbus had limited remaining funds, and the EPA was transitioning to lead the remaining design and construction work.¹⁸ Major cleanup at the Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp Superfund site in Jacksonville, Florida, began in January 2025.¹⁹

The Multistate Environmental Response Trust remains active as of 2026, owning, investigating, and cleaning up hundreds of former Kerr-McGee and Tronox sites across 31 states under EPA and state oversight. Recent milestones include completed soil excavation in Navassa, North Carolina, field trials for groundwater treatment in Soda Springs, Idaho, and community redevelopment planning in Caselton, Nevada.²⁰

More than a decade after Anadarko paid, cleanup at many of the 2,700-plus covered sites is still in progress. Groundwater work at Henderson is projected to continue for decades. Cimarron won’t close until 2039. On the Navajo Nation, hundreds of abandoned mines remain unaddressed. The settlement delivered unprecedented funding, but the contamination it was meant to fix built up over 85 years of industrial activity.

1
U.S. Department of Justice. Remarks Prepared for Delivery by Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole at Environment and Natural Resources Division Press Conference
2
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Case Summary: Settlement Agreement in Anadarko Fraud Case Results in Billions for Environmental Cleanup
3
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP. Bankruptcy Court Rules That Spinoff Was a Fraudulent Transfer
4
U.S. Department of Justice. United States Announces $5.15 Billion Settlement of Litigation Against Subsidiaries of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation
5
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Case Summary: Tronox Incorporated Bankruptcy Settlement
6
U.S. Department of Justice. Bankruptcy Court Awards Between $5.1 Billion and $14.1 Billion Against Subsidiaries of Anadarko Petroleum Corporation
7
CNBC. Anadarko Petroleum Settle Cleanup Claim for $5.15 Billion
8
U.S. Department of Justice. United States Announces Court Approval of Historic $5.15 Billion Environmental and Tort Settlement
9
PBS. Taking a Closer Look at the Largest Environmental Settlement in U.S. History
10
Inside Climate News. Nuclear Weapons, Navajo Nation Uranium Mining, Environmental Destruction, Health
11
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. AUM Cleanup
12
Navajo Nation Council. RDC Meets With USEPA on Region 9 AUM Remediation Efforts
13
Las Vegas Review-Journal. Feds Win $1.1 Billion in Settlement to Clean Up Perchlorate in Henderson
14
Nevada Environmental Response Trust. NERT Home
15
KOCO. Uranium Groundwater Contamination at Oklahoma’s Kerr-McGee Logan County Site
16
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Kerr-McGee (Cimarron Corporation) Former Fuel Fabrication Facility
17
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Welsbach and General Gas Mantle Superfund Site Cleanup Profile
18
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp Columbus Superfund Site Cleanup Profile
19
Multistate Environmental Response Trust. Major Cleanup Began January 2025 at Kerr-McGee Jacksonville Superfund Site
20
Multistate Environmental Response Trust. About the Multistate Trust