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As CFAC Investigation Inches Forward, a Community Waiting Game Ensues

EPA, Glencore officials encourage patience as Superfund program progresses

By Dillon Tabish
Columbia Falls Aluminum Company along the Middle Fork Flathead River on July 31, 2014. Greg Lindstrom | Flathead Beacon

COLUMBIA FALLS — It was 14 years ago when Donna Tolar bought her home at the end of 13th Street near the Flathead River in a forested neighborhood known as Aluminum City. In this large residential outcropping on the outskirts of town, where Teakettle Mountain and the mammoth Columbia Falls Aluminum Company plant rise in the background, hers is one of the homes without city services, which means she uses well water.

It wasn’t until her boyfriend at the time, a worker at the nearby industrial site, warned her about drinking tap water that questions and concerns began to surface. Then a few years later, the state Department of Environmental Quality and Environmental Protection Agency showed up.

Everything that has happened since — the closure of the aluminum plant, the mounting anxiety about potential contamination and the Superfund designation — is well-known among locals, especially Tolar and other residents in Aluminum City.

“I’ve had 10 grandchildren go through this house,” she said. “I worry about it.”

“My well is one of the closest,” she added. “My property backs up to the aluminum plant. I’m concerned.”

Like the rest of the community, Tolar is trapped in a waiting game while a lengthy investigation is underway to determine the severity and extent of hazardous materials in and around the 960-acre site.

The first round of sampling results, announced last month, confirmed what many had suspected: landfills throughout the property contained decades’ worth of hazardous byproducts and harmful elements, including highly poisonous cyanide, as well as fluoride, arsenic and corrosive metals and oxides. The roughly 700 samples that were collected from soil and water sources throughout the property showed various degrees of contamination.

The research identified relatively small, but not insignificant, amounts of cyanide throughout the property. Less than 1 percent of all soil samples exceeded the EPA’s recommended screening levels for the poisonous material. High concentrations were detected in the groundwater near the west landfill and so-called West Scrubber Sludge Landfill. There was also a slight detection of cyanide in Cedar Creek near the northwestern end of the property, which has prompted additional evaluation.

An underground water plume has been identified and is moving toward the river, but its concentrations decrease the further south it travels.

»»» Click here to read the CFAC site investigation report

The initial sampling results did not detect any contaminants next to the Aluminum City neighborhood, according to Roux Associates, an environmental research firm conducting the remedial investigation for CFAC and its owner, Glencore.

The next round of sample results, which were collected in December, were recently submitted to the EPA and will be announced this summer. Another round of samples will be collected in June during spring runoff.

By the end of 2017, the EPA plans to release a risk assessment work plan, which will outline any environmental and human health dangers associated with contamination at the industrial site.

“All of this info has to be taken into account to help us find out what’s there,” Mike Cirian, the EPA’s project manager, told the crowd at last week’s community meeting at the high school cafeteria.

Barely six months since the EPA designated CFAC as a Superfund site on the National Priorities List, and at least three years before a cleanup plan could be established, residents are growing increasingly impatient.

“We’re going to be waiting four to five years to address it, to fix it,” Flathead County Commissioner Phil Mitchell said at last week’s meeting. “If you know this is going on now, with two sets of samples, why would we wait so long?”

Cirian responded, “We’re not allowed to pre-judge the remedy. We need to have all that information.”

»»» Click here to read a timeline of CFAC’s rise and fall.

Others sought reassurance that the contamination isn’t indicating a potential ecological disaster on the horizon or future headlines that could cause collateral damage for the community’s economy.

“To me, it looks better than I thought it might’ve ended up looking like,” Don Bennett, president of Freedom Bank, said in regards to the first sample results. “I’m taking it kind of as good news.”

Officials with CFAC and Roux Associates are confident that the contamination is as expected — focused heavily on the legacy landfills where hazardous waste material known as spent potlining was trashed by previous site owners before it was declared hazardous in 1988.

The timing of the discarded spent potlining is becoming increasingly relevant, too. Glencore, which bought the aluminum plant in 1999, has agreed to pay $4 million for the remedial investigation, which means the company is paying for site research and EPA staff oversight. But moving forward, other parties could be brought in to pay for potential cleanup and associated costs tied to the industrial plant, including Atlantic Richfield Company, or ARCO.

In 1977, ARCO purchased the Anaconda Company, which owned and operated the aluminum plant since its opening in 1955. It owned the plant until 1985, when the Montana Aluminum Investors Corporation bought the property and became known as the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company. CFAC owned and operated the site until 1999.

“At the end of the day, Glencore is not responsible for this,” John Stroiazzo, CFAC’s project manager, told the Beacon. “Yes, we’ve started the process. Yes, we’ve gone forward with the remedial investigation. But ARCO will most likely be brought to the table.”

EPA officials confirmed they contacted ARCO seeking their participation in the remedial investigation, but the company declined.

Stroiazzo said Glencore was willing to initiate the investigation and pay for the initial costs because it was in the best interest of the community and would move the project forward. The EPA could identify other “potential responsible parties” that would be potentially held accountable for funding cleanup efforts.

“We’ve been taking a lot of heat and getting a lot of bad press about this,” he said. “But we try to be as honest as we can. We’re funding everything. We’ve got oversight from EPA and we’re paying for everything. At this point in time, I don’t think anybody can say anything bad about us. The place operated for a long, long time and provided a lot of economic stability. It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this.”

Residents like Tolar are left waiting as the drama plays out right next door.

“This is going really slow, but I understand,” she said. “They have their steps. And we let the state try it first and the state was not successful. Thank God (the EPA) didn’t take us off the (National Priorities List) or else we would have to start all over again. I’m happy (the EPA) kept us. I want to know what’s out there. I want it cleaned up.”