Glencore, the company that owns the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant below Teakettle Mountain, has hired a large planning and communications company from Canada to help deal with the closed plant.

Michelle Drylie, a senior urban planner and facilitator with rePlan, headquartered in Toronto, met recently with Columbia Falls City Manager Susan Nicosia and Montana West Economic Development President Kellie Danielson.

“Recently, we have been working with the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company to understand the facility’s social, economic and environmental impact on the local community and more broadly across Flathead County,” Drylie said in an email to Danielson. “Part of our work includes meeting with local and regional stakeholders to hear their thoughts on the facility, its impacts and the future of the community.”

According to Drylie, rePlan “provides independent social assessment, advisory and management services to resource companies, governments and financial institutions around the world.”

Danielson said she understood Drylie’s role was “to investigate the socio-economic impact of the plant closing, which includes understanding the community sentiment with Glencore.”

“We discussed how important private land ownership is valued in this part of Montana, how bringing land to a sustainable reuse is encouraged and supported locally, and how we as an economic development entity would support CFAC or Glencore in assessing the next use for the property,” Danielson said.

According to the Flathead County Treasurer’s Office, Glencore paid about $340,000 in property and equipment taxes for the plant in 2012. From 1988 through 2012, CFAC’s property and equipment taxes have totaled about $31.7 million, most of which went to School District 6.

A letter from U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., requesting a Superfund-type cleanup project at the site brought investigators from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to Columbia Falls.

Both agencies say they want community direction before moving to the next stage — listing the plant on the Superfund’s National Priorities List and a more comprehensive remedial investigation that precedes actual cleanup.

Federal and state representatives said they want letters from the Columbia Falls City Council and the Flathead County commissioners requesting more action. While the city’s response has been clear, calling for a cleanup, the county’s response has been less so.

“In my meager opinion, let’s not run off onto a pathway from which we can’t return,” Flathead County Commissioner Cal Scott said in an email to Nicosia on May 9. “Sensible priorities dictate our working through a renewed progressive interaction with Glencore (CFAC), Flathead community, Economic Development, Montana State DEQ, then follow a plan. Once we jump into EPA-driven resolution or cater to sensationalist rantings, Flathead/Montana has lost control. Stay on the ‘down-low’ and intelligently strategize — unified.”

This is not the first time rePlan has worked for Glencore. Glencore, the giant Swiss-based international commodities firm merged last year with Xstrata, one of the world’s largest mining companies. Xstrata’s huge open-pit mine and copper and zinc processing facility near Timmins, Ontario, is cited on rePlan’s corporate website.

In addition to working with other mining company giants, including Barrick, BHP Billiton, Newmont and Rio Tinto, rePlan helped the Alberta government develop a long-term strategic plan for growth in the Athabascan oil sands area.

In another recent development, Tony Hayward, who was BP’s chief executive during the huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010, was named the permanent chairman of Glencore Xstrata on May 8. Hayward had been serving as the company’s interim chairman for the past year.

Hanners is the editor of the Hungry Horse News in Columbia Falls.