Health board unhappy with state CFAC oversight

Environmental agencies dealing with Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. are finding no safe shelter in the conference room of the Flathead City-County Board of Health.

“What annoyed me to death [when the EPA came to give a similar presentation in April] was that this business has been here for 50 or 60 years,” board member Dr. P. David Myerowitz said last week. “How, regardless of what rules you may have, your division of state government could allow them to have so contaminated the site?”

Myerowitz was speaking to Jenny Chambers, the division administrator of the remediation division of the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. The state agency is tasked with working with various entities to inspect the contamination level at the defunct aluminum plan.

She said there was one major way to reduce contaminated sites such as Columbia Falls Aluminum.

“Environmental regulations,” she said. “That company had been in business since the ’40s and ’50s. If you look at regulations, they were established in the 1970s. There is a lot of pre-environmental contamination that went on.”

The aluminum plant started operation in 1955 with Anaconda Copper Mining Co., then Atlantic Richfield Co. in 1977, Aluminum Investors Corp. in 1985 and finally Glencore International AG in 1999.

The state’s excuse didn’t pass muster with the board.

“Why didn’t we make them clean it up” in the 1970s? Myerowitz asked. “There is a disparate view between shutting down America’s coal industry and the soft hand you use on CFAC.”

Dr. Wayne Miller, another board member, chided the DEQ’s bluster and lack of action. Board Chairman Dr. Glen Aasheim said the lack of oversight seemed like a simple fix.

“It seems like [inspections are] something that could be done every year or two while they are in business, not when they are trying to close,” he said.

Findings made public in April revealed cyanide and various heavy metal contaminants in wells around the aluminum plant property, potentially posing a health risk.

Chambers found herself caught between health board members who wanted to hold the government accountable and a company that has yet to cooperate.

“Further investigation is required to determine the level of contamination,” she said. “Glencore refused to be part of an agreement of consent, and in December of 2014, CFAC pulled out of AOC negotiations.”

Unlike the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the Montana environmental department doesn’t really have a mechanism for making a company comply with mandatory inspections or to pay remunerations. It relies on the cooperation of liable parties for cleanup.

The property currently has hundreds of spent potliners containing hazardous material that must be removed in two years or lead to fines of $1,000 a day, according to an agreement of consent entered into by Calbag, an Oregon-based company that is demolishing the aluminum plant.

Chambers said the overwhelming response from the community was to do something now and worry about holding Glencore or CFAC responsible later.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.