Agency holds meeting on CFAC study

A special public meeting will be Tuesday for Environmental Protection Agency representatives to release results from their study of the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant site.

The informational meeting will be in the Columbia Falls Fire Hall  from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Representatives from the federal agency will discuss their recent site reassessment and inform the public about EPA and Montana Department of Environmental Quality environmental programs as well as potential next steps.

A question-and-answer session will follow the presentation.

According to EPA site assessment manager Rob Parker, the purpose of the screening reassessment was to collect data that could be used to inform government officials, the community and other stakeholders.

It did not draw conclusions on whether the plant should be torn down and cleaned up.

Parker said the plant site is eligible on a technical basis to be placed on the federal Superfund’s National Priority List. The study was conducted under that authority after Sen. Jon Tester and then-Sen. Max Baucus formally requested that the plant property be put on the list.

The plant has been closed since 2009.

EPA gathered samples of groundwater, surface water, sediment and surface soils in September 2013. A 271-page report presents the analytical results of that sampling event.

Cyanide levels in some domestic wells in Aluminum City were elevated, but not enough to warrant ordering people not to drink the water, Parker said. Weston, the contractor that conducted the field work, will return to Aluminum City this week to gather more samples, Parker said.

Some contaminants have migrated to the Flathead River, but the river is not a source of drinking water for people and the EPA sampled only surface water and sediments, Parker said.

To determine the impacts of contaminants on fish and aquatic life would require actually sampling fish and aquatic life tissues, he said.

For more information or to read the report, go to http://www2.epa.gov/region8/columbia-falls-aluminum-reduction-plant.

Hanners is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.