The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency likely will seek a Superfund designation for the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. site this fall, an agency official said Tuesday.

The EPA makes Superfund designations twice a year, each spring and fall. Many Flathead County and Columbia Falls city leaders were surprised last week when they learned the CFAC designation potentially could come as soon as March.

“The listing more than likely won’t happen until this fall,” EPA Remedial Project Manager Mike Cirian said.

Flathead County Commissioner Phil Mitchell, who has been attending local meetings on the shuttered plant site, said he’s pleased the federal agency is willing to hold off the designation until later this year because it gives all the parties involved more time to determine the best remedy for any cleanup.

Attaching the Superfund designation to the 960-acre aluminum processing plant site has been a big concern for community and local government officials who want to avoid the stigma of the listing, especially for a city that prides itself on being the gateway to Glacier National Park.

Glencore, the international company that owns the plant site, also has opposed the Superfund listing and last November reached an agreement with the EPA for a $4 million probe into the full extent of any contamination.

That agreement, an official administrative order of consent, is a legally binding document between Glencore and the EPA.

The remedial investigation Glencore is paying for will take close to five years and involves drilling test wells and doing groundwater sampling.

City leaders are pushing for a Superfund alternative listing that provides federal oversight, but without the full-blown Superfund designation.

There’s confusion over what a Superfund alternative is, however, Cirian said pointed out.

“A Superfund alternative is still part of the Superfund process without the actual Superfund designation,” he said. “It gets us through the remedial investigation feasibility study ... that will determine what needs to be done for corrective action. That’s all it gets us.”

The Superfund designation provides access to federal money for cleanup. If there is any of the $4 million commitment from Glencore left over following the investigation for contamination, it cannot be used for cleanup, Cirian noted.

Once the site was added to the National Priorities List, it became eligible for cleanup under the Superfund program. That listing itself is part of the Superfund process, Cirian said.

He continues to stress that the alternative approach has been used only once in the EPA’s six-state Region 8, at the Kennecott mining district in Utah.

The reason it has rarely been used in this region, Cirian noted, is “because Superfund works well.

“When we’re done the communities are cleaner and better off and can move forward,” Cirian said. “It sometimes takes a lot of years to clean up something that has been caused over decades or even 100 years.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com