State issues citation over CFAC cleanup
Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. and Calbag, the company hired for initial cleanup of the proposed Superfund site, have been cited by the state’s environmental agency for moving potentially hazardous material on the property without permission.
“We told them we needed a plan that we can view and approve before they can start moving things off of that site and they have not done that,” said Lisa Peterson, a spokeswoman for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality.
CFAC submitted its remediation plan to the state in August, and on Sept. 7 the state asked the company to revise the plan before it could approve it.
The state also asked the company to provide an inventory of materials on the property because the only inventory that had been submitted was incomplete.
The company has not yet sent a revised plan to the state.
CFAC spokesman Haley Beaudry said the materials were allowed to be moved off the property under an existing agreement between CFAC and the state.
“The stuff that’s being shipped off-site is recycled material,” Beaudry said. “Nothing that is not supposed to have come out” has left the facility.
He added, “I’m sure when the guys at [the Department of Environmental Quality] look it over, I’m sure they’re going to say also that there’s no big problem.”
Peterson said the agency was concerned, however, that it appeared the company was moving forward with a plan that had not been approved by regulators. Any waste material, such as spent potliners inside the buildings, cannot legally be taken off-site until a plan is approved and a full analysis of the contaminants in those wastes has been completed.
“It’s more than a paper violation. We really need the company to give us a plan that we can approve,” she said, adding that the agency can’t assure the people in the area and people handing the materials that the work is being done safely if it doesn’t know what the materials are.
The Department of Environmental Quality sent the notice of violation to the companies on Oct. 26. They have until Nov. 20 to respond.
Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at swilson@dailyinterlake.com.