Guest opinion: Contained pollution is an illusion

The removal of Columbia Falls’ oldest municipal water well following detection of a “forever chemical” raises important questions about plans for the large Teakettle Heights subdivision near the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company (CFAC) Superfund site. It also underscores the need to better evaluate whether all high-density developments could pollute or deplete our water supply. 

As someone who spent a career managing environmental, safety, and health operations at massive federal nuclear and research installations, I know firsthand that groundwater does not respect corporate property lines or bureaucratic boundaries. For years, state officials and eager developers have operated under a comforting illusion: that a clean line can be drawn on a map to neatly separate toxic industrial legacy from profitable residential growth. The recent detection of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) at nearly double the federal limit completely shatters that baseline confidence. It lays bare an uncomfortable truth that local residents have raised for years: we simply do not understand the hidden, shifting pathways of our local groundwater, and we are gambling our public health, and future water supplies, to find out.  

City officials rightfully acted fast to disconnect the affected municipal well after routine testing flagged the dangerous toxic compounds. Yet, the city's official release contained a line that should make every Flathead Valley resident pause: “Because groundwater can travel through the aquifer before reaching a well, the well's location does not establish the location or source of the contamination.” 

If the city cannot pinpoint the source of a massive PFOA plume beneath a former sawmill property, how can regulators look the public in the eye and guarantee that the adjacent Teakettle Heights Subdivision is perfectly safe? Just days before the well was shut down, federal and state leaders paraded through the nearby CFAC Superfund Site, treating the 421-unit development as a triumph of "productive reuse." They pointed proudly to a planned $57.6 million underground slurry wall meant to lock a million cubic yards of cyanide, fluoride, and arsenic in place forever. But nature laughs at slurry walls. Groundwater flows and channels change during heavy seasonal rains, and contaminants migrate silently through subterranean gravel networks. 

The approval of the Teakettle Heights project occurred despite fierce objections from local citizens who questioned the long-term viability of putting dense working-family neighborhoods next to an unlined toxic waste dump. Local community groups like the Coalition for a Clean CFAC have consistently demanded that the toxic materials be hauled away entirely rather than capped in place. Yet, the EPA and Glencore opted for the cheaper "waste-in-place" approach instead. 

The municipal well crisis proves that what we don't know can hurt us. If our regional aquifer can surprise us with hazardous levels of PFOA from an unidentified source, it can easily surprise us with a breach in a man-made bentonite clay slurry wall at the base of Teakettle Mountain. While I laud the developer of Tea Kettle Heights for pursuing affordable/attainable housing, this may not be the best location.  Fast-tracking any high-density growth while operating in an informational vacuum regarding our drinking water, and connected surface water infrastructure, is reckless. We must deny new water wells in areas where our streams, aquifers and water tables are at risk of contamination or depletion. We must insist on smarter, more sustainable development densities throughout Flathead County.  Columbia Falls, Flathead County, State and Federal Regulators must hit the brakes on high density development until rigorous, independent peer-reviewed hydrologic modeling can guarantee that the water flowing into our homes isn't traveling through a legacy of industrial poison or at risk of depletion.  

Paul Kruger lives in Columbia Falls. He is the retired director of environment, safety, and health at the Hanford Nuclear Site in Washington, and the retired manager of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington.