Regional EPA director addresses CFAC concerns

Local officials were able to get some of their questions answered about the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. Superfund site Tuesday as they got the chance to sit down with the Regional Administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 8, Doug Benevento and project manager Mike Cirian at the CFAC facility.

Topics ranged from the project timeline to testing sites to the possible formation of additional groups to help inform citizens of the project’s findings.

“One of the priorities we have is trying to move things along safely but also getting it done expeditiously. We want to start bringing things to some sort of resolution so that people can move on,” Benevento said. “Our job is to enact a remedy that will protect human health and the environment, and that’s what we intend to do. It appears to me that things are going pretty well, though our job is to trust by verify and make sure that things are moving forward the way they should be moving forward. That’s the role I am in.”

Currently, the EPA is in the process of testing the CFAC site to identify and find the source of any possible contaminates before devising a plan to clean up and remove any such contaminates. So far, the project has put in 48 wells during the first phase of testing, taking more than 520 soil, 12 sediment, 87 surface water and 242 groundwater samples from the 900-plus acre site.

The process is a lengthy one, but one that Columbia Falls City Manager Susan Nicosia says should be done right the first time.

“We don’t want people sitting around this table years down the line surprised that there is water contamination and wondering why we missed it,” she said. “We all share this water and we certainly don’t want contaminated water 25 years from now.”

Benevento agreed that the project should move forward as quickly as possible, but not at a rate that would cause any mistakes.

“We want to move things forward quickly, but quick shouldn’t be a substitute for thorough. We don’t want to cut corners just so we can move quickly,” he said. “You don’t want to find anything after the studies are done, but there are five year reviews afterwards. There will be a continual analysis of the site ongoing every five years to ensure there is nothing surprising of new out there. If there is something new, we find the PRPs (potentially responsible parties) responsible.”

“We want to miss anything, but we want to get it done fast. So, we have to find the sweet spot to work both of those together so we don’t miss anything, we get it done thoroughly and we get it done as quickly as possible,” Cirian added.

One thing the council members present were concerned about was getting information about the project out to the public in a way that could be easily understood and in a way that would help quell any rumors about contaminates at the site.

“With the innuendos and the rumors and half-truths and the outright bald-face lies that float around, there is an undercurrent of ‘what if.’ It has more than one person concerned, because half of them don’t know a damn thing about what they are talking about, but they are relying on that crazy information that is out there,” councilman Mike Shepard said.

One proposed way to deal with the volume of technical information released to the public about the project would be to form a Technical Assistance Group, or TAG, that would hire an expert to break the material down into simpler, easier to understand terms, so that the public could get a better grasp of the project’s findings.

“I think a technical assistance grant makes some sense for this community. I think it is something you may want to consider,” Benevento said. “That way, you have someone that answers to you. I am confident that we are going to give all the information to you straight up, but you don’t know that. You want someone that can go through all of this info and be able to answer specific questions for you. I would encourage it.”

As the work moves forward, councilman Shepard, a former CFAC employee, said he feels the tests have done a good job of identifying some of the contaminated sites, but the only real way to find them all would be to speak with the former employees whose had the job of burying the materials in the first place.

“The only people that buried stuff at this plant were the materials department and the service crew. When things happened, the order was to get rid of it immediately,” he said. “The ex-employees that know where things are felt that no one listened to them when they came to initial meetings, so they quit coming. There are some that could tell you where things are.”

Benevento acknowledged that could be a useful avenue to pursue and said the project would continue to do everything in its power to identify the location of any possible contaminates.

“If there is stuff that is buried that we don’t know what it is or where it is, that is important to us,” he said. “It seems to me that we have an understanding of what actually is heading into the river, based on the sampling we have done. We don’t know everything yet, but we know enough to know that we need to continue to watch it.”

But the projects aims to do more than just test and identify problem sites, it plans to find ways to deal with them while the process continues, if possible. Cirian spoke of possibly breaking the project down into “operable units,” that would allow specific problem areas to be dealt with if there is an easy fix available.

“Just because we are still investigating doesn’t mean we can’t solve problems as we find them,” he said.

“We are looking at adaptive management approaches, where we can see some progress, not just constant study followed by work. We are trying to be quick, smartly. That is what we are trying to implement,” Benevento added.

As for future public involvement in the project, Cirian said there will continue to be public meetings in the future with liaison meeting quarterly and additional larger public meetings whenever new information becomes available.