Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

One of the bitterest environmental fights in Texas history ended Tuesday when Tucson-based Asarco LLC said it was ending its effort to reopen its copper smelter in El Paso.

Instead, the bankrupt company said it would tear down the smelter because of a "dramatic downturn of the world economy" and would work with Texas environmental officials to leave the site in a condition that would allow its reuse.

Asarco's plan to restart the smelter, northwest of downtown El Paso and just yards from Juarez, Mexico, stirred a six-year battle that pitted the company and its supporters against the city of El Paso and local and statewide environmental advocates.

Opponents decried the 7,000 tons of pollution that the facility's state-approved permit would allow each year. Asarco countered that the smelter, which had been idle since 1999, would meet all environmental rules and provide jobs.

The first smelter opened on the site in 1887, and since then, successive generations worked there processing metals. Originally smelting lead, the facility contributed to the contamination of surrounding neighborhoods, eventually becoming a nationally recognized symbol of community struggles over pollution and lax government oversight.

The three members of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality voted unanimously in February 2008 to renew Asarco's permit, saying Texas' clean air law gave them no choice. Smelter opponents disputed that conclusion and sued to overturn the decision.

Asarco's effort to secure that renewal – including three meetings between a lobbyist for the company and TCEQ Chairman Buddy Garcia before the vote – was the subject of a Dallas Morning News investigative report published Jan. 18.

One of Asarco's chief opponents, state Sen. Eliot Shap- leigh, D-El Paso, said Tuesday that the company's decision signaled an environmental renewal for Texas' biggest border city.

"Now we can move to an era of better jobs, cleaner skies and healthier neighborhoods," Shapleigh said. "Since the 1880s, Asarco has defined our past. Now our talent and aspirations will define our future."