US Ecology history

1987 Central States Low-Level Waste Treatment Contract selects US Ecology to develop its low-level radioactive waste facility.

In 1989, it sold National Ecology to a subsidiary of Babcock and Wilcox.

1991 Harry Phillips, Jr., replaces W. E. Prachar as chief executive; American Ecology moves to Louisville, Kentucky; US Ecology moves to Sacramento, California.

Lemley had been a director of American Ecology since 1992, having served before that as chief executive of Transmarche-Link JV, which designed and built the Channel Tunnel providing train service between England and France.

The company began working closely with state officials and eventually selected a site in Nebraska to begin operating in 1993.

The company experienced losses of $49.8 million on revenues of $67.9 million in 1995, the same year that United States Geological Survey data showed radioactive waste had long been leaking from its site in Beatty, Nevada.

In 1996, the company had losses of $11.9 million; the following year, it earned $1.43 million on revenues of $41.5 million.

In 1998, a year after negotiations began for the Central Interstate Low-Level Radioactive Waste facility in Nebraska, that state denied American Ecology the license to construct the five-state waste facility.

In an effort to recoup costs for the development of potential sites in California and Nebraska, in 2000 American Ecology became embroiled in a legal fight over whether Nebraska was justified in rejecting its license application, seeking reimbursement for some $94 million in development costs.

2004 American Ecology sells its Oak Ridge facility.

Also in 2005, the company resumed full treatment services in a new hazardous waste treatment building at its Texas facilities.