Commitments and Contingencies

Environmental Liabilities

The Company evaluates the adequacy of its environmental liabilities on a quarterly basis. Adjustments to the liabilities are made when additional information becomes available that affects the estimated costs to study or remediate any environmental issues or expenditures are made for which liabilities were established.

Changes in the Company’s environmental liabilities for the nine months ended May 31, 2017 were as follows (in thousands):



Reportable Segment	Balance as of August 31, 2016		Liabilities Established (Released), Net		Payments and Other			Balance as of May 31, 2017		Short-Term		Long-Term
Auto and Metals Recycling	$	46,122	$	2,349	$	(404	)	$	48,067	$	1,903	$	46,164
Corporate	228		58		(166		)	120		—		120
Total	$	46,350	$	2,407	$	(570	)	$	48,187	$	1,903	$	46,284

AMR

As of May 31, 2017 and August 31, 2016, AMR had environmental liabilities of $48 million and $46 million, respectively, for the potential remediation of locations where it has conducted business and has environmental liabilities from historical or recent activities.

Portland Harbor

In December 2000, the Company was notified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) that it is one of the potentially responsible parties (“PRPs”) that own or operate or formerly owned or operated sites which are part of or adjacent to the Portland Harbor Superfund site (the “Site”). The precise nature and extent of any cleanup of the Site, the parties to be involved, the timing of any specific remedial action and the allocation of the costs for any cleanup among responsible parties have not yet been determined. The process of site investigation, remedy selection, identification of additional PRPs and allocation of costs has been underway for a number of years, but significant uncertainties remain. It is unclear to what extent the Company will be liable for environmental costs or natural resource damage claims or third party contribution or damage claims with respect to the Site.

While the Company participated in certain preliminary Site study efforts, it was not party to the consent order entered into by the EPA with certain other PRPs, referred to as the “Lower Willamette Group” (“LWG”), for a remedial investigation/feasibility study (“RI/FS”). During fiscal 2007, the Company and certain other parties agreed to an interim settlement with the LWG under which the Company made a cash contribution to the LWG RI/FS. The Company has also joined with approximately 100 other PRPs, including the LWG members, in a voluntary process to establish an allocation of costs at the Site, including costs incurred by the LWG in the RI/FS process. The LWG members have also commenced federal court litigation, which has been stayed, seeking to bring additional parties into the allocation process.

In January 2008, the Natural Resource Damages Trustee Council (“Trustees”) for Portland Harbor invited the Company and other PRPs to participate in funding and implementing the Natural Resource Injury Assessment for the Site. Following meetings among the Trustees and the PRPs, a funding and participation agreement was negotiated under which the participating PRPs agreed to fund the first phase of the natural resource damage assessment. The Company joined in that Phase I agreement and paid a portion of those costs. The Company did not participate in funding the second phase of the natural resource damage assessment.

A former Trustee, the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, which withdrew from the council in 2009, filed a suit on January 30, 2017 against approximately 30 parties, including the Company, seeking reimbursement of certain past and future response costs in connection with remedial action at the Site and recovery of assessment costs related to natural resources damages from releases at and from the Site to the Multnomah Channel and the Lower Columbia River. The Company does not have sufficient information to determine the likelihood of a loss or to estimate the amount of damages being sought or the amount of such damages that could be allocated to the Company.

On March 30, 2012, the LWG submitted to the EPA and made available on its website a draft feasibility study (“FS”) for the Site based on approximately ten years of work and $100 million in costs classified by the LWG as investigation-related. The draft FS submitted by the LWG identified ten possible remedial alternatives which ranged in estimated cost from approximately $170 million to $250 million (net present value) for the least costly alternative to approximately $1.08 billion to $1.76 billion (net present value) for the most costly alternative and estimated a range of two to 28 years to implement the remedial work, depending on the selected alternative. However, the EPA largely rejected this draft FS, and took over the drafting process. The EPA provided their revised draft FS in August 2015 that identified five possible remedial alternatives which ranged in estimated cost from approximately $550 million to $1.19 billion (net present value) for the least costly alternative to approximately $1.71 billion to $3.67 billion (net present value) for the most costly alternative and estimated a range of four to 18 years to implement the remedial work.

In June 2016, the EPA issued its final FS and Proposed Plan for the cleanup of the in-river portion of the Site. In the Proposed Plan, the EPA identified its preferred alternative, which included a combination of dredging, capping, and enhanced natural recovery and which the EPA estimated would take approximately seven years to construct with additional time for monitored natural recovery to occur and cost an estimated $746 million (net present value). This is approximately half of the estimated $1.4 billion (net present value) cost of a very similar preferred alternative that EPA Region 10 presented to a peer review group in November 2015. The final FS identified eight possible remedial alternatives (some of which contain two disposal alternatives, for a total of 13 possible alternative remedial scenarios) which ranged in estimated cost from approximately $316 million to $677 million (net present value) for the least costly alternative to approximately $1.21 billion to $2.67 billion (net present value) for the most costly alternative that the EPA did not screen out and estimated a range of four to 19 years to implement the remedial work.

The EPA received input on its Proposed Plan from over 5,300 commenters during a 90-day public comment period that closed in September 2016. In their comments, the Company and certain other stakeholders identified a number of serious concerns regarding the EPA's risk and remedial alternatives assessments and the EPA's cost estimates, scheduling assumptions and conclusions regarding the feasibility, effectiveness and assignment of remediation technologies, including that the EPA’s FS and Proposed Plan were based on data that are more than a decade old and may not accurately represent site or background conditions.

In January 2017, the EPA issued a Record of Decision (“ROD”) that identified the selected remedy for the Site. The selected remedy is a modified version of one of the alternative remedies in the EPA’s FS that expands the scope of the cleanup and has an estimated cost which is significantly more than their Proposed Plan. The EPA has estimated the total cost of the selected remedy at $1.7 billion with a net present value cost of $1.05 billion (at a 7% discount rate) and an estimated construction period of 13 years following completion of the remedial designs. In the ROD, the EPA stated that the cost estimate is an order-of-magnitude engineering estimate that is expected to be within +50% to -30% of the actual project cost and that changes in the cost elements are likely to occur as a result of new information and data collected during the engineering design. The Company has identified a number of concerns regarding the EPA's estimated cost and time required for the selected remedy. Because of questions regarding cost-effectiveness and other concerns, such as technical feasibility, use of stale data and the need for new baseline data, it is uncertain whether the ROD will be implemented as issued. In addition, the ROD does not determine or allocate the responsibility for remediation costs.

In the ROD, the EPA acknowledged that the assumptions used to estimate costs for the selected remedy were developed based on the existing data and will be finalized during the remedial design, after design level data to refine the baseline conditions are obtained. Moreover, the ROD provides only Site-wide cost estimates and does not provide sufficient detail or ranges of certainty and finality to estimate costs for specific sediment management areas. Accordingly, the EPA has indicated and the Company anticipates that additional pre-remedial design investigative work, such as new baseline sampling and monitoring, will be conducted in order to provide a re-baseline and delineate particular remedial actions for specific areas within the Site. This re-baselining will need to occur prior to proceeding with the next phase in the process which is the remedial design. The remedial design phase is an engineering phase during which additional technical information and data will be collected, identified and incorporated into technical drawings and specifications developed for the subsequent remedial action. The EPA is seeking a new coalition of PRPs to perform the re-baselining and remedial design activities. Remediation activities are not expected to commence for a number of years and responsibility for implementing and funding the EPA’s selected remedy will be determined in a separate allocation process. While an allocation process is currently underway, the EPA's ROD has raised questions and uncertainty as to when and how that allocation process will proceed.

Because there has not been a determination of the specific remediation actions that will be required, the amount of natural resource damages or how the costs of the investigations and any remedy and natural resource damages will be allocated among the PRPs, the Company believes it is not possible to reasonably estimate the amount or range of costs which it is likely to or which it is reasonably possible that it will incur in connection with the Site, although such costs could be material to the Company’s financial position, results of operations, cash flows and liquidity. Among the facts currently being developed are detailed information on the history of ownership of and the nature of the uses of and activities and operations performed on each property within the Site, which are factors that will play a substantial role in determining the allocation of investigation and remedy costs among the PRPs. The Company has insurance policies that it believes will provide reimbursement for costs it incurs for defense, remediation and mitigation for natural resource damages claims in connection with the Site, although there is no assurance that those policies will cover all of the costs which the Company may incur. The Company previously recorded a liability for its estimated share of the costs of the investigation of $1 million.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is separately providing oversight of voluntary investigations by the Company involving the Company’s sites adjacent to the Portland Harbor which are focused on controlling any current “uplands” releases of contaminants into the Willamette River. No liabilities have been established in connection with these investigations because the extent of contamination (if any) and the Company’s responsibility for the contamination (if any) have not yet been determined.

Other AMR Sites

As of May 31, 2017 and August 31, 2016, the Company had environmental liabilities related to various AMR sites other than Portland Harbor of $47 million and $45 million, respectively. The liabilities relate to the investigation and potential remediation of soil contamination, groundwater contamination, storm water runoff issues and other natural resource damages and were not individually material at any site.

Legacy Environmental Loss Contingencies

The Company’s environmental loss contingencies as of May 31, 2017 and August 31, 2016, other than Portland Harbor, include actual or possible investigation and cleanup costs from historical contamination at sites currently or formerly owned or operated by the Company or at other sites where the Company may have responsibility for such costs due to past disposal or other activities ("legacy environmental loss contingencies"). These legacy environmental loss contingencies relate to the potential remediation of waterways and soil and groundwater contamination and may also involve natural resource damages, governmental fines and penalties and claims by third parties for personal injury and property damage. The Company has been notified that it is or may be a potentially responsible party at certain of these sites, and investigation and cleanup activities are ongoing or may be required in the future. The Company recognizes a liability for such matters when the loss is probable and can be reasonably estimated. Where investigation and cleanup activities are ongoing or where the Company has not yet been identified as having responsibility or the contamination has not yet been identified, it is reasonably possible that the Company may need to recognize additional liabilities in connection with such sites but the Company cannot currently reasonably estimate the possible loss or range of loss absent additional information or developments. Such additional liabilities, individually or in the aggregate, may have a material adverse effect on the Company's results of operations, financial condition or cash flows.

Steel Manufacturing Business (“SMB”)

SMB’s electric arc furnace generates dust (“EAF dust”) that is classified as hazardous waste by the EPA because of its zinc and lead content. As a result, the Company captures the EAF dust and ships it in specialized rail cars to a firm that applies a treatment that allows the EAF dust to be delisted as hazardous waste.

SMB has an operating permit issued under Title V of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which governs certain air quality standards. The permit is based on an annual production capacity of 950 thousand tons. The permit was first issued in 1998 and has since been renewed through February 1, 2018.

SMB had no environmental liabilities as of May 31, 2017 and August 31, 2016.

Other than the Portland Harbor Superfund site and legacy environmental loss contingencies, which are discussed separately above, management currently believes that adequate provision has been made for the potential impact of these issues and that the ultimate outcomes will not have a material adverse effect on the consolidated financial statements of the Company as a whole. Historically, the amounts the Company has ultimately paid for such remediation activities have not been material in any given period.

Other Contingencies

The Company is a party to various legal proceedings arising in the normal course of business. The Company recognizes a liability for such matters when the loss is probable and can be reasonably estimated. Legal proceedings include those arising from accidents involving Company-owned vehicles, including Company tractor trailers. In some instances, such accidents and the related litigation involve accidents that have resulted in third party fatalities. It is reasonably possible that the Company may recognize additional losses in connection with such lawsuits at the time such losses are probable and can be reasonably estimated. Such losses may be material to the Company's consolidated financial statements. The Company believes that such losses, if incurred, will be substantially covered by existing insurance coverage. The Company does not anticipate that the resolution of legal proceedings arising in the normal course of business, after taking into consideration expected insurance recoveries, will have a material adverse effect on its results of operations, financial condition, or cash flows.