Atalco faces lawsuit from an environmental group as red mud concerns escalate

Along the Mississippi River, located near Gramercy, the bauxite refinery, which has been in continuous distress since the beginning of this year, is now served with a lawsuit in the federal court. This has been initiated by the regional environmental group concerning its ponds of "red mud" waste. 

As per the claims initiated by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, the series of identified problems was first pinpointed by the state regulators located in the Atlantic Alumina or popularly known as Atalco. This indicates improper care concerning the impact of the operations taking place in the St. John and St. James, the Baptist parishes. 

With this lawsuit, the environmental group is working towards ensuring that the state forces are incorporating effective solutions that are relevant to the pressing issue, which is the bright red caustic liquid leakage into the Blind River Swamp.  

The lawsuit in detail 

The provision of the suit is developed in a way that enables the local people to put forward legal actions for enforcing the law regarding the solid and hazardous waste and the federal Clean Water Act. It has been claimed by LEAN that its members own the property alongside the waterways, which is deemed to be affected by the discharge of red mud, with the focus on using it for further recreation. 

The findings of the state Department of Environmental Quality inspectors are recounted in the 17-page-long suit, which details a series of visits that took place between September 2024 and June 2025. This further documents the pressing issues related to the storage ponds that hold red mud alongside the dozens of Atalco's own self-reported violations with respect to the water discharge permit. 

Also read: Discharge from Atalco alumina refinery into Mississippi River prompts environmental concerns

Red mud, due to its highly alkaline nature, poses the possibility of contaminating the trace amounts of naturally occurring heavy metals, including mercury. Apart from this, as the testing results of the past company, red mud poses slight radioactivity from the elements like uranium and its decay isotopes as well. Keeping notes of these impacts, the lawsuit notes that the red mud would be treated as a hazardous waste if not for a specific federal exemption. 

LEAN lawsuit alleges, "In the aggregate, this litany of violations demonstrates that defendant's lack of care for the proper operation of the facility has been reckless and with egregious disregard for the environmental and human impacts of its mismanagement."

The attorney for LEAN, Clay Garside, has stated that the lawsuit reflects the allegations developed by the state. He further states that it directly links the problems which would have been undiscovered if the inspection had not taken place, which Atalco have failed to report. According to him, the DEQ compliance order issued on August 22 does not thoroughly outline the potential penalties and LEAN is assured to take the required concrete action. 

He added, "We want to make sure it gets cleaned up and that they have to pay for what they've saved in running the place poorly over all those years."

The lawsuit now requests the federal judge to assess the violations of the conditions of the state permits by Atalco alongside the federal water, solid waste, and hazardous waste regulations. It further demands that Atalco implement the necessary treatment technologies to avoid incurring any future violations. Apart from this, it requests to add civil penalties calculated as per the number of days the violation has persisted. 

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Atalco officials’ take

Atalco officials, within the statement, have stated that the matters which are being delineated within the lawsuit "are being fully and thoroughly enforced by LDEQ" in relation to the existing compliance orders. 

Moreover, it has been indicated by the company previously about the repair efforts to stop the leakage from the red mud ponds, which were initiated before the order was passed on August 22. Additionally, a subsequent regulatory filing reports that the company had previously informed DEQ about its addressing the additional alleged violations and is working on developing a work plan.

Currently, no response or comment has been made by the DEQ official concerning the request being dropped, noting that the agency does not encourage any discussion about an ongoing litigation. The LEAN lawsuit was filed on October 31 in the US District Court in New Orleans.

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