CFAC proposed action plan should be out in October; more EPA meetings on tap
This is one of the few buildings remaining at the CFAC site. The company and developer Mick Ruis announced an agreement for Ruis to purchase 2,400 acres of land at the former aluminum plant site, including warehouses like the one shown.
By CHRIS PETERSON
Hungry Horse News
The Environmental Protection Agency has set dates and times for more meetings on the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. Superfund site cleanup plan.
The EPA will hold a meeting Sept. 14 at 6 p.m. at the Columbia Falls High School to go over and summarize the Remedial Investigation/ Feasibility study which did an initial analysis of the site and scored different methods to potentially cleanup of defunct aluminum plant.
On Oct. 4 the EPA will then be back to talk about the proposed action — which will outline the EPA’s final plan for cleanup. That meeting is also at 6 p.m. at the high school.
The proposed action, unlike the feasibility study, will undergo a formal public comment period.
In addition, the EPA will have public outreach on the plant at the Community Market Aug. 11 from 5 to 8 p.m. and then Sept. 14 from 5 to 8 p.m.
The proposed action is expected to be out in late September, so people can review it before the meeting.
Thousands of tons of waste were dumped onsite during the 54-year history of the plant.
A feasibility study completed by the company last June looked at several alternatives and scored a slurry containment wall combined with bolstering existing landfills as the best alternative for dealing with contamination at the Superfund site.
Test wells near the west landfill and adjacent ponds show levels of cyanide and fluoride significantly higher than the safe drinking water level.
For example, the safe drinking water level for cyanide in water as set by the Environmental Protection Agency is 200 parts per billion. Test wells just downstream from the west landfill show contamination of 5,000 parts per billion.
The feasibility study suggested the best way to clean up the site would be to keep the waste in place and create a “slurry wall” around it to keep the contaminants from leaching out.
A full containment slurry wall has a cost of about $50 million, according to the feasibility study. It would also require longterm monitoring and testing.
The cost to haul the waste away by truck, about $164 million.
It estimated that there’s about 1.2 million cubic yards of material that would have to be removed, which would require 60,000 truck loads.
Hauling that much waste out would take four to five years, assuming there were 70 truckloads of waste removed a day.
That amounts to 60 million miles of driving.
The study, however, doesn’t really examine transporting the material by rail.
A federal court ruling found that CFAC and its parent company Glencore, is responsible for 65% of cleanup costs, while the Atlantic Richfield Co., which is owned by British Petroleum, is responsible for 35% of cleanup costs.