City learns more about Superfund

Columbia Falls city officials agreed at a May 20 meeting with Montana Department of Environmental Quality and Flathead County Commissioner Cal Scott that they would proceed cautiously in seeking support for a cleanup of the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. property.

The city council has been unanimous in its call for additional investigation of the closed smelter site as the next step toward a cleanup, but they were told by the Environmental Protection Agency and DEQ at a public meeting in April that strong community support must exist before that will happen.

The council directed city manager Susan Nicosia at their regular April 21 meeting to draft a letter to Gov. Steve Bullock and DEQ director Tracy Stone-Manning requesting that the CFAC site be placed on the federal Superfund’s National Priorities List for further action.

When asked last week if the county commissioners would support sending a similar letter, commissioner Cal Scott replied, “A third is willing,” meaning himself.

Scott noted that the CFAC site is a valuable property for future development.

“My greatest concern is the unknowing sensationalism that can get this process off the track,” he said. “There’s a delicate balance between openness and getting the facts out.”

Jenny Chambers, the DEQ’s Remedial Division administrator, and Mike Trombetta, a DEQ brownfields coordinator, handed out flow charts at the May 20 meeting explaining the differences between the EPA’s and DEQ’s cleanup process.

The CFAC site is already on the DEQ’s priority list, and the state process would cost less and move faster, Chambers said. But if the plant’s current owner, Glencore, or other potentially liable parties won’t cooperate, the EPA might have to take over to ensure cleanup work is completed. Either way, it won’t be easy, and it will take time.

“It could be 10 years from the time CFAC is placed on the National Priorities List to when the cleanup is completed,” Chambers said.

Further information on the extent of groundwater contamination or about any impacts to fish and aquatic life in the Flathead River will require additional investigation, but that won’t happen without letters of support from the local communities, Chambers said.

Interim action, however, such as fencing off landfills or wastewater ponds to protect wildlife, or providing drinking water to residents with contaminated wells, is possible sooner, Trombetta said.

Chambers said the DEQ has not yet received results from the EPA’s additional sampling of residential wells in Aluminum City and other adjacent properties. She agreed to pursue that information.

Trombetta noted that contamination doesn’t have to migrate beyond the plant’s boundaries for the company to be in violation.

“The state owns the groundwater and surface waters,” he said. “If contamination gets into them, it’s a violation.”

Chambers said the DEQ wants to meet with Glencore representatives possibly in July. City councilor Dave Petersen asked what would happen if the company said it couldn’t support further action without additional information to support that decision.

“Then we tell them to do more sampling and come up with a remedial plan,” Chambers said.

If Glencore is reluctant to do that, then the DEQ could turn to its legal resources or the EPA to get the process moving forward, Chambers said. The DEQ will also remind Glencore that working with the state will cost less and take less time, she pointed out.

Nicosia noted that the city and the county need to be on the same page about the cleanup.

“Who’s going to send a conflicting letter?” Petersen asked.

Word of a potential Superfund cleanup could generate fear in the surrounding community, harming property values and setting back economic development efforts, even if there’s no evidence of contamination outside the plant’s boundaries, Nicosia said.

She suggested using rePlan, the Canadian planning firm recently hired by Glencore to study the plant’s impacts on the community, as a way to communicate with Glencore.

But for now, Nicosia recommended that the city and county send letters to the DEQ simply asking them to meet with Glencore to determine what level of cooperation could be expected and to ask them to fence off certain landfills and wastewater ponds at the plant to protect wildlife.

“I like that idea,” mayor Don Barnhart said. “And even if the county won’t send a letter to the governor asking for further investigation, the city will.”

When contacted the next day, county commissioner Gary Krueger said he was in the process of gathering information.

Richard Hanners writes for the Hungry Horse News