EPA explains CFAC cleanup options

The bad news about the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. smelter site, concerned citizens learned last week, is that it could take at least a decade to clean it up. The good news is that the state maybe could do it faster.

Representatives from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality presented this and other information at a public meeting in the Columbia Falls Fire Hall on April 15, including preliminary results from a screening assessment based on sampling done at the CFAC site last fall. The plant has been closed since 2009.

Cyanide in wells

EPA site assessment manager Rob Parker said contaminants were found downgradient from the landfills north of the plant and downgradient from the percolation ponds north and south of the plant, including metals, cyanide, fluoride and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

“All this is similar to other industrial plants and was not surprising,” he said.

Samples also were taken from five residential wells in Aluminum City, southwest of CFAC. Two contained cyanide at levels well below the Safe Drinking Water Act’s allowable limits, Parker said. Consultants returned in early April under spring conditions to sample 20 residential wells downgradient and near the smelter.

“We don’t have that data back yet,” Parker said.

The EPA has seen no data indicating the city of Columbia Falls’ drinking water supply is in danger, Parker said. The groundwater source for the city’s wells is more than three miles away from the sample area, he pointed out.

Sampling results indicate cyanide and metals such as manganese have migrated from the plant site to the Flathead River, but fish tissues have not been sampled so it’s unknown if fish populations have been impacted, Parker said.

The next step

The next step for the EPA is a more detailed remedial investigation, Parker said. The CFAC site is eligible for placement on the federal Superfund’s National Priority List because contaminants at the site are not properly contained.

“NPL listing would open up funding and technical resources for a remedial investigation to determine any long-term threats to health or the environment,” Parker said.

EPA site assessment manager Victor Ketellapper, who spent several years at Libby dealing with asbestos contamination, said a remedial investigation could take three to four years and total clean-up could take seven to 10 years.

But there could be a faster alternative.

“The state has programs that can be used even if the EPA is not involved,” said Jenny Chambers, the DEQ’s Remedial Division administrator.

Montana’s Superfund program operates under the Comprehensive Environmental Cleanup and Responsibility Act, and the CFAC smelter site is already on the CECRA list, said Denise Martin, DEQ’s Hazardous Waste Cleanup section supervisor.

The site could also be cleaned up under the state’s Water Quality Act, Chambers said, but both processes are time consuming and depend on people sending comments to local officials to get the process started.

“The EPA policy is not to move forward without local support, including a letter from the governor,” Ketellapper said.

“If I hear from the public loud and clear, then I’ll take it to the next level,” Chambers said, recommending people write their city councilors and county commissioners.

Columbia Falls City-County Planning Board chairman Russ Vukonich described how EPA and CFAC consultants came to his home near the plant to sample his wells and asked how the current investigation started.

Sen. Dee Brown, R-Coram, spoke up, saying she initiated the Superfund investigation by contacting the county commissioners and Sen. Jon Tester and former Sen. Max Baucus.

Responsibility

An important step for both the state or federal agencies would be an investigation into prior ownership of the plant site to find responsible parties who could pay for the cleanup.

Ketellapper said he had met with people from Glencore, the Swiss commodities company that owns CFAC, but it turned out he meant Steve Wright, CFAC’s environmental manager who lives here, an attorney and several consultants.

“I don’t have a strong feeling either way about the meeting,” Ketellapper said. “When we told them the site was eligible for NPL listing, they wanted to know how EPA figured that out. When we explained it to them, they seemed to agree.”

“Did Glencore take responsibility?” Brown asked.

That will need to be checked out, Chambers said. If Glencore made a deal with a third party, the company might have to take that party to court.

“We can’t clean up the site and try to get money later,” Chambers said. “If we can’t get the cleanup money from the plant’s owner, then we would have to go to the NPL list and ultimately to Congress for funding.”

Steelworkers Local 320 president Brian Doyle said he had a lot of experience dealing with Glencore. They’re pretty tough, he said, but they hate publicity, and he was 98 percent sure the plant would never restart.

“Glencore is a big company, and they’d rather have you pay to clean this up,” Doyle told everyone in the room.

Former Flathead County Commissioner Henry Oldenburg also had his doubts about how the cleanup would play out. He urged the agencies to work for the people, not Glencore.

Water quality

Oldenburg also warned about contamination migrating downstream to Flathead Lake and noted that he has been using the Flathead River as his drinking water source for decades.

Ketellapper explained that the river is not a source for a public water supply, and the screening assessment didn’t look at private sources. He also noted that the EPA is “taking the community’s interest seriously.”

“A remedial investigation could look into sampling further down the river,” Parker added.

Columbia Falls city councilor Mike Shepard asked what would happen if a “cocktail of chemicals” made their way to Aluminum City during a storm event and made residential wells there unusable.

The EPA could take emergency action and ask Glencore to pay for it, Ketellapper replied.

Columbia Falls resident Sarah Dakin said she was glad to see the EPA and DEQ working together, but she had concerns about the DEQ issuing CFAC a wastewater discharge permit long after it had expired. She said she was concerned about inadequate staffing at DEQ.

Oldenburg agreed.

“If I had known about this permit, I would have hired a lawyer and done something about it,” he said.

Good cop,

bad cop

If the DEQ is going to hand off the process to the EPA, wouldn’t it be faster to go with the EPA in the first place, Columbia Falls city councilor Dave Petersen wanted to know.

The EPA could use the DEQ’s data and start from there, Ketellapper said, unless a lot of time had passed and it needed to be redone.

The DEQ and EPA have worked well together in the past, Chambers noted.

“In some cases it plays out like good cop, bad cop, where we warn that the EPA might get involved,” Chambers said. “But while the DEQ process might be faster, it might not be as fast as people want.”

When someone noted how quickly other Pacific Northwest aluminum plants were cleaned up over the past decade, Parker noted that the Pacific Northwest lies outside EPA’s Region 8, but that would be worth investigating.

Ketellapper also explained that the Superfund typically dealt with abandoned plants, but it was possible the worst areas at CFAC could be cleaned up while the rest of the plant restarted.

When asked how the EPA determines if a plant is abandoned, Ketellapper responded, “Glencore says it still might restart the plant.”

Chambers agreed.

“We don’t think CFAC is abandoned,” she said. “They have a union contract, they applied for a wastewater discharge permit. But if we don’t make any headway in talks with them, we’ll be back asking for the plant to be NPL listed.”