Bill would provide money for cleanup plan

The Montana House is considering a bill that would provide $1.5 million to develop a cleanup plan for a former industrial complex along Flathead Drive that has been mired in disputes over who is responsible for the cleanup.

Three distinct cleanup sites are on mostly barren land between Stillwater Forest Products and Office Max.

Senate Bill 489 includes $1.5 million from the state's "orphan share fund," a special account designated for environmental cleanups.

The money would be used by the Montana Department of Environmental Quality for a comprehensive study aimed at determining the full extent of contamination from wood treatment and refinery operations at the former Reliance Refinery, Kalispell Pole and Timber, and Yale Oil facilities.

Rep. Jon Sonju, R-Kalispell, said the bill was originally written to give the DEQ unfettered access to the orphan fund for other projects. But it was amended to limit expenditures to the Kalispell project.

Sonju said he supports the bill because it amounts to forward progress on an environmental cleanup that is long overdue. But he still questions why more studies are necessary and the money is not being put directly to work in decontaminating the sites.

Denise Martin, the site response section manager for DEQ in Helena, explained a complicated history that stretches back to the 1920s. And because of the multiple operations and ownerships involved with the sites, potential liabilities associated with the cleanup have become tangled over time.

Starting in 1995, the state agency sent notices to a series of businesses identified as being "potentially liable" parties with hopes that some cleanup efforts would be initiated. Another round of notices were sent in 2001.

"No one has been willing to step forward and take care of the entire problem," Martin said.

So the state filed a lawsuit against all of the potentially liable parties.

"A judge will have to decide who will have to pay what" in terms of actual cleanup costs, Martin said.

Pollution in the area mostly involves pentachlorophenol, a chemical used in wood treatment operations at Kalispell Pole and Timber, a business that operated from 1973 to 1990.

That chemical can produce dioxin as a byproduct.

There are also "petroleum constituents related to the wood treating operations or the refinery operations" at the sites.

The now-defunct Yale Oil company had a refinery operation from 1938 to 1978, and Reliance Refinery operated from 1924 to the mid-1960s.

The state acquired a portion of the contaminated sites through a tax foreclosure in the 1930s and ended up leasing some of that land to Kalispell Pole and Timber.

Today, the state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation is one of the potentially liable parties.

Other players involved include the former Klingler Lumber and Montana Mokko operations, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad, Swank Enterprises and the Exxon oil company.

Martin noted that the federal Environmental Protection Agency pursued some limited assessments of contamination at the sites in the 1980s, and that some of the parties involved have pursued some measures to clean up or mitigate contaminated soils.

In 1989, Exxon excavated contaminated soil at the former Yale Oil site. After being treated through a superheating process, the soil was used to fill in the excavated areas.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe did limited sampling in the area that determined private domestic wells on Flathead Drive were starting to show signs of contamination from pollution in the area. The railroad connected those residences to city water service in 1997.

In 1999, the railroad installed a system designed to clean groundwater with an ozone injection system.

The Environmental Protection Agency put up a chain-link fence around former sludge pits that were used by Reliance Refinery for disposing of petroleum waste.

Combined, those actions "by no means took care of all of the contamination" in the area, Martin said.

Now the state plans to do a comprehensive assessment of contamination and develop a plan for the best way to clean it up.

While the Kalispell sites are not designated as "maximum" priorities for the Department of Environmental Quality, Martin said, they are among the department's high-priority sites.

"The problem is we've been sort of tinkering around with folks since 1995, hoping they would do what needs to be done here and they didn't," Martin said.

The funding in SB 489 will help answer some important questions, Martin said.

"How extensive is the groundwater contamination?" she said. "We don't know how far it goes. We don't if it is potentially threatening other wells in the area or if it will potentially reach the Stillwater River."

The state's assessment will also determine the extent of surface and subsurface soil contamination.

"We're going to be looking at it all comprehensively," Martin said.

After being approved on a 94-4 vote on second reading, Senate Bill 489 was sent to the House Appropriations Committee where it is scheduled for a hearing at 8 a.m. Friday. The House could consider the bill later that day for a third reading and final vote.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com