EDITORIAL: Superfund status a necessary step

There really never was any choice.

The shuttered Columbia Falls aluminum plant would either become a Superfund site managed by the Environmental Protection Agency, or it would remain a problem for local residents and government agencies for years to come.

The Swiss-based owner of the plant, Glencore, has already had many years to deal with cleanup at the facility, including seven years since it last operated. Yet very little happened until the EPA started looking at intervention. We applaud Glencore for stepping forward since then with funding for environmental testing, but it is too little, too late.

The aluminum refining process is notoriously toxic, and though the risks were somewhat mitigated for many years by the extremely lucrative jobs associated with the plant, there is no upside when the jobs have long since disappeared.

Some community voices such as County Commissioner Phil Mitchell and U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke have expressed concern that a Superfund designation could create a stigma for Columbia Falls. That undervalues the intelligence of the American public. It is not the Superfund designation that creates a stigma, but years of inaction and the contamination of earth, air and water surrounding the plant.

Sen. Jon Tester got it about right when he said of the Superfund listing, “This decision guarantees that after seven years of broken promises and stonewalling, Glencore will finally be held accountable for the cleanup of CFAC.”

Now the Superfund process will unfold — probably not as swiftly as people want it to, but at least the listing is a start to making the CFAC property useful again.