The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will conduct an assessment at Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. in response to a recent request from Montana Sens. Max Baucus and Jon Tester.

The two Democratic senators wrote to the EPA March 5, asking the agency to study whether contamination at the aluminum plant poses any risks to the community or future business on the 120-acre site at the base of Teakettle Mountain near the Flathead River. An assessment could determine whether the area should be declared a Superfund site.

Glencore, the Swiss-based parent company of the mothballed aluminum plant, closed CFAC in 2009. Since then Tester and Baucus have worked with both Glencore and the Bonneville Power Administration to reopen the plant, but volatile metal prices have been a stumbling block.

EPA Regional Administrator Howard Cantor said the agency is planning a site inspection and assessment of the CFAC property. Similar inspections were carried out at the plant in 1986 and 1988.

“The EPA and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality agree that site conditions have likely changed from 1988, and the appropriate next step will be for EPA to conduct a site reassessment using current protocols,” Cantor wrote in a letter to the senators.

“This work entails gathering existing information about the production facility, surrounding potentially impacted areas and environmental data,” the letter states. “If an actual or potential threat to human health or the environment is identified, we will collect additional environmental data to verify the presence of hazardous substances or pollutants, determine if these substances are being released to the environment, and assess if these substances have reached populations or sensitive environments.”

The letter does not say when the assessment will get under way and it says it is difficult to predict how long it will take.

“But it will be a priority for the EPA, and we anticipate completing our assessment within one year, depending on available resources,” Cantor wrote.

The letter says the EPA will coordinate with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and collaborate with local government officials and other stakeholders in the Columbia Falls community.

State Sen. Dee Brown, R-Columbia Falls, also has been concerned about potential contamination at the site. Late last year she asked the Flathead County commissioners to get involved in getting the site declared a Superfund site.

Brown said she’s heard anecdotal accounts about potential pollution from plant workers through the years, but added there’s been no study to support that speculation. By taking action now to facilitate cleanup, the land would be ready and waiting for other manufacturing if Glencore sold the property, she said.

The Superfund program was established in 1980 through federal legislation that authorized the EPA to identify parties responsible for contamination and compel them to clean it up.