Plantation owners seek answers about possible mercury soil contamination by alumina refinery

The owners of two historic plantations asked the St. James Parish Council Wednesday to pay for tests that would determine whether the Noranda Alumina plant near Gramercy is causing mercury soil contamination.

Norman Marmillion, owner of Laura Plantation in St. James Parish, and John Cummings, owner of Whitney Plantation in St. John the Baptist Parish, which is home to an acclaimed slavery memorial, said they were making the request in response to reports last month that Noranda officials believed the 55-year-old plant has been emitting mercury into the air for decades undetected and unpermitted.

The owners argued the public, physicians, parish officials and state regulators all need to know what those soil tests might show and claimed the emissions were a detriment to their tourism-oriented businesses. The plantations are across the Mississippi River from the industrial complex.

The Noranda complex has long been permitted to release mercury mixed with waste mud into large leveed-off pits on its site near Gramercy and the Veterans Memorial Bridge.

But Noranda and state Department of Environmental Quality officials can’t yet say why the former Kaiser Aluminum facility has been unexpectedly releasing mercury into the air. The releases were discovered during upgrades last March. The plant has continued to operate. The plant turns bauxite ore shipped from Jamaica into alumina, which supplies the company’s aluminum smelter in Missouri.

Noranda officials suspect the mercury is coming from the bauxite, the source rock from which the plant extracts up to 1.3 million tons of alumina annually.

Marmillion told the council he would like an independent, third party to test the soil and to exclude DEQ.

After Noranda’s acknowledgements in April and May to DEQ came to light last month, DEQ ordered Noranda to submit a method within 30 days to test the plant’s air emissions. Once the method is approved, DEQ ordered, the air testing must be completed in 30 more days. DEQ’s order threatens daily civil penalties of $27,500 to $32,500.

Noranda and DEQ officials have said the releases are likely small and not a risk to the public. Once the emissions were discovered, Noranda officials asked DEQ for permission to emit up to 250 pounds of mercury annually into the air on an interim basis while the company determined precisely how much mercury the plant was releasing.

Parish President Timmy Roussel said parish officials wanted to hear from Marmillion and Cummings and now plan to meet with Noranda officials. Then, parish officials plan to meet with their consultant, Environ, about how to proceed.