18 Superfund sites located in the Flathead
The case against placing the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. smelter site on the federal Superfund’s National Priorities List made by Glencore, the site’s owner, and Rep. Ryan Zinke is that Superfund status will delay cleanup and stigmatize the site for future development.
Flathead County Commissioner Gary Krueger echoed Glencore’s and Zinke’s concerns about the negative impacts of Superfund status during the Flathead County Board of Health meeting on April 16.
“When I hear people ask, ‘Can I swim in Flathead Lake?’ — it scares me,” Krueger told the board. “I’m really nervous about what I’m hearing here.”
Last week, Flathead City-County Health Department director Joe Russell commented on the need for further investigation of the the closed smelter plant.
As a member of the Montana Board of Environmental Review for 16 years, Russell is familiar with cleanup programs at Montana’s numerous industrial and mining sites.
Russell said he would have preferred the site was handled by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality as a state Superfund project under the state’s Comprehensive Environmental Cleanup and Responsibility Act (CECRA) rather than by the Environmental Protection Agency as a federal Superfund project under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
But Glencore broke off talks with DEQ last year, saying they had hired a consulting company to handle a remedial investigation. This set off a response by Sen. Jon Tester and community leaders who want the cleanup handed off to the EPA under CERCLA.
Russell expressed concern about groundwater contamination migrating beyond the CFAC site and impacting nearby residential drinking water wells. He also commented on Glencore’s, Zinke’s and Krueger’s economic concerns.
“We have several CECRA sites around Flathead County, and these sites don’t seem to be ‘stigmatizing’ Flathead County,” Russell said.
Eighteen state Superfund sites on the CECRA priorities list are in Flathead County. Five are ranked high priority, and three have been referred to the EPA — CFAC, the Flathead Mine in Niarada, and the site of a BNSF Railway derailment that took place on Whitefish Lake in 1989.
Four high priority sites include the Beaver Wood Products site in Columbia Heights, the Creston Post and Pole Yard, the Reliance Refining Co. site in Kalispell, and the BNSF Railway facility in downtown Whitefish. The Somers Marina site, right on the shores of Flathead Lake, is ranked medium priority.
There are 19 federal Superfund sites in Montana on the CERCLA priorities list, including two proposed sites — CFAC and the Smurfit-Stone paper mill in Missoula. More than half of them involve mining or metals manufacturing.