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Commitments and Contingencies | 3 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2013
Commitments and Contingencies | Note 9: Commitments and Contingencies Capital Project Commitment—During November 2012, EDC entered into an agreement with Weatherly Inc. for the licensing, engineering, and procurement of major manufacturing equipment for a new 65% strength nitric acid plant to be constructed at the El Dorado Facility. In addition, EDC plans to construct a separate nitric acid concentrator. The estimated cost for this project is approximately $120 million, of which $18.6 million has been incurred and capitalized at March 31, 2013. Legal Matters—Following is a summary of certain legal matters involving the Company: A. Environmental Matters Our operations are subject to numerous environmental laws (“Environmental Laws”) and to other federal, state and local laws regarding health and safety matters (“Health Laws”). In particular, the manufacture, production and distribution of products by our Chemical Business are activities that entail environmental risks and impose obligations under the Environmental Laws and the Health Laws, many of which provide for certain performance obligations, substantial fines and criminal sanctions for violations. There can be no assurance that we will not incur material costs or liabilities in complying with such laws or in paying fines or penalties for violation of such laws. The Environmental Laws and Health Laws and enforcement policies thereunder relating to our Chemical Business have in the past resulted, and could in the future result, in compliance expenses, cleanup costs, penalties or other liabilities relating to the handling, manufacture, use, emission, discharge or disposal of effluents at or from our facilities or the use or disposal of certain of its chemical products. Historically, significant expenditures have been incurred by subsidiaries within our Chemical Business in order to comply with the Environmental Laws and Health Laws and are reasonably expected to be incurred in the future. We will also be obligated to manage certain discharge water outlets and monitor groundwater contaminants at our Chemical Business facilities should we discontinue the operations of a facility. We do not operate the natural gas wells where we own an interest and compliance with environmental laws is controlled by others, with our Chemical Business being responsible for its proportionate share of the costs involved. As of March 31, 2013, our accrued liabilities for environmental matters totalled $587,000 relating primarily to matters discussed below. It is reasonably possible that a change in the estimate of our liability could occur in the near term. Also see discussion in Note 7 – Asset Retirement Obligations. 1. Discharge Water Matters Each of our chemical manufacturing facilities generates process wastewater, which may include cooling tower and boiler water quality control streams, contact storm water (rain water inside the facility area that picks up contaminants) and miscellaneous spills and leaks from process equipment. The process water discharge, storm-water runoff and miscellaneous spills and leaks are governed by various permits generally issued by the respective state environmental agencies as authorized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), subject to oversight by the EPA. These permits limit the type and amount of effluents that can be discharged and controls the method of such discharge. We believe that all of our chemical facilities are in compliance with the respective permits, except as discussed below. The El Dorado Facility is subject to a state National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) discharge water permit issued by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (“ADEQ”). The El Dorado Facility is currently operating under an NPDES discharge water permit, which became effective in 2004 (“2004 NPDES permit”). In November 2010, a preliminary draft of a discharge water permit renewal for the El Dorado Facility, which contains more restrictive limits, was issued by the ADEQ. EDC believes that the El Dorado Facility has generally demonstrated its ability to comply with applicable ammonia and nitrate permit limits, but has, from time to time, had difficulty demonstrating consistent compliance with the more restrictive dissolved minerals permit levels. As part of the El Dorado Facility’s long-term compliance plan, EDC has pursued a rulemaking and permit modification with the ADEQ as to the discharge requirements relating to its dissolved minerals. The ADEQ approved a rule change, but the EPA formally disapproved the rule change. In October 2011, EDC filed a lawsuit against the EPA in the United States District Court, El Dorado, Arkansas, appealing the EPA’s decision disapproving the rule change. In March 2013, the District Court affirmed the EPA’s decision. EDC is evaluating its options whether to appeal the decision. We do not believe this matter regarding the dissolved minerals will be an issue once the pipeline discussed below is operational. During 2012, EDC settled an Administrative Complaint issued by the EPA, and thereafter handled by the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”), relating to certain alleged violations of EDC’s 2004 NPDES permit. Initially the Administrative Complaint sought a penalty of $124,000 for alleged violations through December 31, 2010, but was settled by EDC for $100,000 and the EPA/DOJ indicated that any alleged violations from and after January 1, 2011, would be addressed at a later date. Thereafter, the DOJ advised that some action would be taken for alleged violations occurring after December 31, 2010. As of the date of this report, nothing has been filed by the DOJ. The cost (or range of costs) cannot currently be reasonably estimated regarding this matter. Therefore, no liability has been established at March 31, 2013. The City of El Dorado, Arkansas (the “City”) is constructing a pipeline for disposal of wastewater generated by the City and by certain companies in the El Dorado area. EDC and other companies in the El Dorado area have entered into a funding agreement and operating agreement with the City, pursuant to which each party has agreed to contribute to the cost of construction and the annual operating costs of the pipeline for the right to use the pipeline to dispose its wastewater. EDC is funding a portion of the construction of the pipeline that will be owned by the City because it believes that it will enable EDC to comply with water discharge permit limits under current and foreseeable regulations. EDC anticipates its share of the funding for the capital cost in connection with the construction of the pipeline will be approximately $3.7 million, of which most of these costs have been incurred and capitalized as of March 31, 2013. The City plans to complete the construction of the pipeline in 2013. Once the pipeline is completed, EDC’s estimated share of the annual operating costs is to be $100,000 to $150,000. The initial term of the operating agreement is through December 2053. Although construction of the pipeline is nearly complete, a group opposing the City’s construction of the pipeline has sued the Corps of Engineers for issuing the permit to the City to construct and operate the pipeline. In addition, the El Dorado Facility is currently operating under a consent administrative order (“2006 CAO”) that recognizes the presence of nitrate contamination in the shallow groundwater. The 2006 CAO required EDC to continue semiannual groundwater monitoring, to continue operation of a groundwater recovery system and to submit a human health and ecological risk assessment to the ADEQ relating to the El Dorado Facility. The final remedy for shallow groundwater contamination, should any remediation be required, will be selected pursuant to a new consent administrative order and based upon the risk assessment. The cost of any additional remediation that may be required will be determined based on the results of the investigation and risk assessment, of which cost (or range of costs) cannot currently be reasonably estimated. Therefore, no liability has been established at March 31, 2013, in connection with this matter. 2. Air Matters The EPA has sent information requests to most, if not all, of the operators of nitric acid plants in the United States, including our El Dorado and Cherokee Facilities and the nitric acid plant (“Baytown Facility”) operated by our subsidiary, EDN, under Section 114 of the Clean Air Act as to construction and modification activities at each of these facilities over a period of years. These information requests were to enable the EPA to determine whether these facilities are in compliance with certain provisions of the Clean Air Act. If the EPA were successful in establishing that any of our chemical facilities were in violation of the Clean Air Act, the EPA could assess civil penalties of up to $27,500 per day and require the facility to retrofit with the “best available control technology.” After a review by our Chemical Business of these facilities in obtaining information for the EPA pursuant to the EPA’s request, our Chemical Business management believes that certain facilities within our Chemical Business will be required to make capital improvements to emission equipment in order to comply with the requirements of the Clean Air Act. Our Chemical Business has been in negotiations with the EPA and has proposed a global settlement in connection with this matter. A settlement offer would require implementation of additional pollution controls to be installed over a period of time in each of our eight affected nitric acid plants to achieve certain proposed emission rates, two of which are already complete. The proposal also offered to include a modest civil penalty but did not provide an amount of any proposed civil penalty. The estimated capital cost to achieve the proposed emission rates is $2 million to $3 million per plant for the remaining six plants, and these capital investments are proposed to be made over a period of several years. The DOJ, on behalf of the EPA, has responded in writing to our proposed global settlement offer and advised in its response which of our proposals are acceptable and not acceptable and certain other provisions that the United States would require in a global settlement. The DOJ’s response also provided that it will require, among other things, that we pay an appropriate civil penalty to the United States and participating state parties, with the amount to be determined after the parties have reached agreement on the core components of a consent decree, and that any settlement is contingent upon the incorporation of the settlement terms into a definitive consent decree acceptable to the parties. Therefore a liability for potential civil penalties has been established in connection with this matter and is included in our accrued liabilities for environmental matters discussed above. We are currently corresponding with the DOJ in an effort to resolve this matter. One of our subsidiaries, Pryor Chemical Company (“PCC”), within our Chemical Business, has been advised that the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (“ODEQ”) is conducting an investigation into whether the chemical production facility located in Pryor, Oklahoma (the “Pryor Facility”) was in compliance with certain rules and regulations of the ODEQ and whether the Pryor Facility’s reports of certain air emissions relating primarily to 2011 were intentionally reported incorrectly to the ODEQ. Pursuant to the request of the ODEQ, PCC has submitted information and a report to the ODEQ as to the reports filed by the Pryor Facility relating to the air emissions in question and has and continues to cooperate with the ODEQ in connection with this investigation. However, on February 20, 2013, investigators with the ODEQ obtained documents from the Pryor Facility in connection with this investigation pursuant to a search warrant and interviewed several employees at the facility. Each of the Company and PCC has received a subpoena, upon the application of the Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma, for documents relating to this matter. The Oklahoma Attorney General’s office subsequently confirmed that neither LSB nor PCC are obligated to respond to the subpoenas and that the subpoenas have been terminated; however, the investigation is ongoing. As of the date of this report, we are not aware of any recommendations made or to be made by the ODEQ with respect to formal legal action to be taken or recommended as a result of the ongoing investigation. Therefore, no liability has been established at March 31, 2013 in connection with this matter. 3. Other Environmental Matters In 2002, two subsidiaries within our Chemical Business sold substantially all of their operating assets relating to a Kansas chemical facility (“Hallowell Facility”) but retained ownership of the real property. Even though we continued to own the real property, we did not assess our continuing involvement with our former Hallowell Facility to be significant and therefore accounted for the sale as discontinued operations. Our subsidiary retained the obligation to be responsible for, and perform the activities under, a previously executed consent order to investigate the surface and subsurface contamination at the real property and a corrective action strategy based on the investigation. In addition, certain of our subsidiaries agreed to indemnify the buyer of such assets for these environmental matters. Based on the assessment discussed above, we account for transactions associated with the Hallowell Facility as discontinued operations. The successor (“Chevron”) of a prior owner of the Hallowell Facility has agreed in writing, on a nonbinding basis and within certain other limitations, to pay and has been paying one-half of the costs of the interim measures relating to this matter as approved by the Kansas Department of Environmental Quality, subject to reallocation. Our subsidiary and Chevron are pursuing with the state of Kansas a course of long-term surface and groundwater monitoring to track the natural decline in contamination. Currently, our subsidiary and Chevron are in the process of performing additional surface and groundwater testing. We have accrued for our allocable portion of costs for the additional testing, monitoring and risk assessments that could be reasonably estimated. In addition, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (“KDHE”) notified our subsidiary and Chevron that the Hallowell Facility has been referred to the KDHE’s Natural Resources Trustee, who is to consider and recommend restoration, replacement and/or whether to seek compensation. KDHE will consider the recommendations in its evaluation. Currently, it is unknown what damages the KDHE would claim, if any. The ultimate required remediation, if any, is unknown. The nature and extent of a portion of the requirements are not currently defined, and the associated costs (or range of costs) are not currently reasonably estimable. Our allocable portion of the total estimated liability related to the Hallowell Facility has been established in connection with this matter and is included in our accrued liabilities for environmental matters discussed above. The estimated amount is not discounted to its present value. B. Other Pending, Threatened or Settled Litigation Other Claims and Legal Actions We are also involved in various other claims and legal actions including claims for damages resulting from water leaks related to our Climate Control products and other product liability occurrences. Most of the product liability claims are covered by our general liability insurance, which generally includes a deductible of $250,000 per claim. For any claims or legal actions that we have assessed the likelihood of our liability as probable, we have recognized our estimated liability up to the applicable deductible. At March 31, 2013, our accrued general liability insurance claims were $647,000 and are included in accrued and other liabilities. It is possible that the actual future development of claims could be different from our estimates but, after consultation with legal counsel, we believe that changes in our estimates will not have a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations.

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