Columbia Falls Aluminium owner opposes Superfund listing

While the Montana Governor joins the fight to get the long shuttered Columbia Falls Aluminium Co. plant on the Superfund National Priorities List, the owner of the plant continues to oppose the listing of the 120-acre land saying it would slow the cleanup process and hinder developments in the area.

The abandoned area has now been deemed a hazardous waste site as it is polluting the groundwater with contaminants like cyanide, arsenic, lead and fluoride according to an EPA study.

The Superfund is a federal environment program that funds cleanup of hazardous sites, however the former external affairs manager of CFAC, Haley Beaudry, says that the federal involvement in the matter will only make the process unnecessarily lengthy.

Glencore plans to tackle the situation by developing a plan to remediate pollution and hire a private contractor to do the job.

The company had expressed similar views before as EPA too had said that acquiring a place in the federal listings could take two to three years pushing the actual cleanup process by approximately six years.