With CFAC decision, Ruis poised to buy property
CHRIS PETERSON | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 days, 14 hours AGO
Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News. He covers Columbia Falls, the Canyon, Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness. All told, about 4 million acres of the best parts of the planet. He can be reached at editor@hungryhorsenews.com or 406-892-2151. | January 15, 2025 6:50 AM
The Environmental Protection Agency Friday released its record of decision for cleaning up the defunct Columbia Falls Aluminum Co plant, which paves the way for Columbia Falls developer Mick Ruis to buy most of the property, save for the landfills themselves.
Most of the site, about 2,000 acres, is outside the of plant footprint and the landfills. Last year, developer Ruis said he had agreed to buy it from owner Glencore for a housing and parks development, pending the OK of the record of decision.
Ruis said Monday that he expects to be able to close on the sale in the next 30 days as lawyers go over the final boundaries of the land sale. He is not buying the landfills.
Ruis has said previously he wants to build homes that will sell for $500,000 with 10% down and owner financing at 6%.
While the plant site itself is not aesthetically pleasing, the rest of the property is idyllic, with meadows, trees and streams.
The cleanup plan calls for placing a fully encompassing slurry wall around the worst landfills and dumps at the plant — the wet scrubber sludge pond and the west landfill.
The record of decision largely mirrors a previously released proposed action for the Superfund site and has been years in the making. The site was first listed as a Superfund site in 2015.
The public, by a large margin, wanted the waste dug up and hauled away by train to an approved landfill in Oregon, at least initially. Then a local group called the Coalition for the Clean CFAC called for another alternative that would basically consolidate the waste onsite in one large landfill.
That idea was ultimately rejected as was hauling the waste away.
The EPA and Glencore, both noted that hauling the waste away was extremely expensive, with an estimated cost of $624 million to $1.2 billion. EPA officials also noted that even if it was dug up, there was no guarantee that they could get it all, so in essence, there would still dumps at the site.
Both the sludge pond and west landfill, which look like grassy meadows today, are leaching high amounts of cyanide and fluoride into the groundwater from spent potliner waste that was buried decades ago. Spent potliner is the carbon material at the bottom of the pots where the aluminum was smelted.
Cyanide and fluoride are two contaminants common to aluminum plants across the Northwest U.S.
The slurry wall would be a 3-foot thick wall 100 to 125-foot deep of bentonite and soil designed to contain the waste.
If the wall is found to leak, then monitoring wells will draw the water to the surface and it will be treated and then returned to the water table.
The plan also calls for capping both the wet scrubber sludge pond and the west landfill.
Groundwater at the site would also see long term monitoring.
The Cedar Creek overflow ditch would also be lined so that it doesn’t seep into groundwater. The ditch, which runs from the Cedar Creek Reservoir, runs through the property in a concrete sluice.
The decision also calls for a suite of monitoring wells on the site, as some members of the public and past employees have said there were other areas where hazardous waste was dumped.
“For the first 5 years, long-term monitoring will be in June and October to document conditions during the high- and low-water season, respectively. Based on sampling results from the first 5 years, the frequency of monitoring may be reduced to annually. Surface water and sediment porewater monitoring will continue until RAOs are achieved. The details on the monitoring network and frequency of sampling and parameters analyzed will be provided in a long-term surface water, porewater and groundwater monitoring plan developed during remedial design,” the EPA said in its decision.
There will also be deed restrictions on groundwater to keep anyone from using it for potable uses in the future. The EPA is also requiring that the former plant area be restricted to commercial or industrial use only.
Other landfills at the site will also see caps bolstered. All told, there are seven landfills at the site. The industrial landfill, for example, will see a better cap and the asbestos landfill will as well.
In addition, about 32,500 cubic yards of contaminated soils, which have copper, nickel, selenium, and zinc as well as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons will be consolidated into a landfill on site and or in a new landfill.
“This cleanup plan reflects years of collaboration and is a crucial step in finalizing a comprehensive set of cleanup actions that will protect the health of the community and the environment,” said EPA Regional Administrator KC Becker in a release. “In partnership with Montana DEQ and the Columbia Falls community leaders, we have worked to ensure public participation and transparency throughout the process. We are moving forward now to get the cleanup underway, protect the Flathead River, and move towards a safer, healthier future for everyone who calls the Columbia Falls area home.”
The Montana state Department of Environmental Quality also supported the plan.
“DEQ’s highest priority, for any Superfund site in Montana, is that the selected remedy be protective of human health and the environment,” said DEQ Director Sonja Nowakowski. “We are confident that the plan announced today will meet those criteria, and DEQ will work with stakeholders and the EPA to ensure that the cleanup is successfully implemented.”
EPA and DEQ will now work to finalize a consent decree with the potentially responsible parties, Glencore and former plant owner the Atlantic Richfield Co. The consent decree will include a comprehensive statement of work and will be open for public comment before being finalized, the EPA said in a release.
EPA and DEQ estimate that the actual cleanup activities, once initiated, will take two to four years to complete.
The 400-plus page ROD is available at the Columbia Falls library and on the EPA’s CFAC Superfund Site webpage.
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