- Peabody Energy's (BTUUQ) Chapter 11 plan, approved Friday by a U.S. bankruptcy judge, and related settlements allow the company to provide only ~2% of as much as $2.7B in environmental liabilities asserted by authorities for sites polluted by lead and zinc mining that ended decades ago.
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WSJ reports the gap between what governmental authorities sought from BTU and what they will get at the end of the bankruptcy means the cost of cleaning up the sites will fall to governments and taxpayers, even as state budgets are stretched thin and the EPA faces a possible 31% budget cut in Pres. Trump's proposed budget.
- The EPA had sought more than $75M from BTU just for the Tar Creek Superfund site in Oklahoma, where lead ore was used to make bullets for U.S. troops before mining operations halted in the 1970s; the area remains so polluted that the U.S. government has paid to relocate residents.