EPA's refusal to fix failed Libby Creek bank riles commissioner

Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck said the county is “taking off the gloves” in response to the Environmental Protection Agency’s unwillingness to repair a bank of Libby Creek that the agency rebuilt in 2009 and has since failed.

Peck made the comment during the March 14 meeting of the City-County Board of Health, where he also suggested getting Montana’s congressional delegations involved in the matter.

“If this is the way (the EPA is) going to treat their remedies that have an issue, what are we going to expect the rest of the way out?” Peck told the board.

The point of contention is a section of Libby Creek near the 400-acre site of the Lincoln County Port Authority, which the EPA designates as Operating Unit 5 of the Libby Asbestos Superfund site. The EPA, having determined the creekside riprap there was contaminated with Libby Amphibole asbestos, finished replacing the offending material in August 2009.

In a letter dated June 16, 2017 and following the washing away of a 250-foot portion of the riprap in Spring 2017, the Port Authority asked the EPA to evaluate the damage. The EPA did so, and in a June 29, 2017 letter responded that the failure was due not to deficiencies in the agency’s work but to a lack of maintenance, changes in the creek’s course and “exceptionally high flows in 2011 and 2015.”

“EPA has determined no further activities will be performed at this property and EPA considers all other restoration issues at the property to be resolved,” states the letter from Mike Cirian, EPA onsite remedial project manager.

Following receipt of that letter, the Port Authority contracted with engineering consultant Mike Fraser to perform a technical analysis of the design, construction and failure of the riprap bank. According to his analysis, completed in December 2017, about half of the EPA’s riprap had eroded. Further, he found that the size of replacement riprap did not appear to meet specifications and was smaller than the riprap it replaced. He also found deficiencies in construction and placement.

Erosion will continue, Fraser concluded, until corrective measures are taken.

The Port Authority followed up with another letter to the EPA, dated Feb. 16, 2018, and sent to Stan Christensen, Region 8 regional administrator. In it, Operations Manager Brett McCully cited Fraser’s “opinion that the failure of the east bank of Libby Creek is directly caused by the improper construction and riprap placement during the 2009 remediation.”

McCully also questioned the EPA’s previous contention that a lack of maintenance or high water caused the failure, citing the riprap having remained intact over the three decades it was in place before the remediation.

“There were many high-water events that occurred over that period of 30 years that did not compromise the bank stability,” McCully wrote.

“We request the EPA immediately address and repair the Libby Creek bank remedy to the pre 2008-2009 conditions,” McCully concluded.

Christensen’s response, dated March 13, was succinct. In it he noted McCully’s letter and referred him to Cirian’s letter from the previous year “documenting that no further action will be taken on this matter by the EPA.”

At the health board meeting, Peck took umbrage at the response and at the EPA’s apparent expectation that the county bear the cost of repairing what Peck contends is a failed remedy.

“We’re looking at probably at least $100,000 (to fix it), and this county cannot eat those kind of things,” Peck said to the health board. “If it would have been up to us, we would have left (the rock-encased vermiculite) there. It’s not like it was open and exposed. It was not nearly as disturbable as what’s left in the walls of these houses.”

The EPA did not respond to a request for comment by press time Monday.