Discontinued Operations

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2017

Discontinued Operations and Disposal Groups [Abstract]

Discontinued Operations

Discontinued Operations

Commitments and Contingencies Related to Discontinued Operations

Discontinued operations represent former mining activities, the last of which ended in 2002. Pursuant to an agreement with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (the “EPA”), the Company performed certain remediation actions at a property sold over fifty years ago. This remediation work was completed by September 30, 2015. The Company has established a contingency provision related to discontinued operations, which was $522,000 and $215,000, respectively, including an increase of $440,000 and $174,000 ($276,000 and $108,000, net of tax benefit of $164,000 and $66,000, respectively) recognized for the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, respectively. The increase for both the years ended December 31, 2017 and 2016, resulted mainly from changes in the scope of the project as required by the EPA and the state of Washington. The remaining balance of the accrued remediation costs as of December 31, 2017, mainly represents estimated future charges for EPA response costs and monitoring and provisions for potential future remediation efforts of the property as required by the state of Washington. The total costs to be incurred in future periods may vary from this estimate.

The provision will be reviewed periodically based upon facts and circumstances available at the time. The costs provisioned for future expenditures related to this environmental obligation are not discounted to present value.