EPA extends CFAC comment deadline
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.
The Environmental Protection Agency has extended the public comment period for the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company Superfund site proposed cleanup plan an additional month.
The deadline for the comment period is now Aug. 31.
Former workers at the plant as well as general members of the public raised concerns at a public hearing recently about the proposed action, which calls for putting a slurry wall to contain waste around offending landfills and sludge ponds, while also moving contaminated soils to existing dumps and burying them on site. Groundwater near the west landfill and old wet scrubber sludge pond has very high levels of fluoride and cyanide, well above safe drinking water standards.
The idea is to put a 100- to 125-foot deep slurry wall around those two dumps to contain the water and presumably, the waste.
All told, the slurry wall alternative, including moving contaminated soil from several places at the site and putting new caps on landfills, would cost about $57 million. CFAC and its parent company, Glencore, would likely bear about 65% of the cost, while former owner the Atlantic Richfield Co. would pay 35%.
The cost split was determined by a federal court ruling in 2021.
It would take between six to 12 months to design, but could be constructed in one or two construction seasons. If timelines hold, it could be completed by the end of the 2027 construction season.
The groundwater monitoring and potential treatment would take an estimated 30 years, with a review of its effectiveness every 5 years.
Some residents want the EPA to require the companies to haul the waste away entirely to an industrial landfill in Oregon, but the EPA hasn’t required that at other aluminum company sites.
It notes that it would take about 60,000 truck or train car loads to haul the estimated 1.2 million yards of waste away and would take four to five years. The contamination would have to be pre-treated and digging up the soil could also expose workers to dust contaminated with cyanide or possibly cyanide gas, which is deadly.
But containing the waste basically makes about 500 acres of the 3,000 acre site a waste dump with capped landfills for eternity.
CFAC owns about 3,000 acres of contiguous lands around the old plant, much of which is forested and beautiful. The city has eyed that for possible future housing projects.
The agency is working on a land use plan for the site, which would be released to the public in the future.
To formally comment to the EPA by email write: Missy Haniewicz at haniewicz.melissa.m@epa.gov or by standard mail to Missy Haniewicz, U.S. EPA, 1595 Wynkoop Street, Denver, Colorado, 80202.