EPA inks clean-up agreement with Montana aluminum plant

The owner of a sprawling, long-shuttered aluminum plant in Columbia Falls has agreed to pay $57.6 million to mitigate pollution associated with decades of aluminum smelting.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a statement Tuesday applauding an agreement with Columbia Falls Aluminum Company that outlines the cleanup objectives for one of northwestern Montana’s largest industrial sites.

The agreement comes nearly a decade after the EPA added the Columbia Falls Aluminum Company site to the National Priorities List, also known as the Superfund list. Under the agreement, CFAC will be responsible for mitigating toxic byproducts such as arsenic, fluoride and cyanide at the site, which was Flathead County’s largest employer in its 1970s heyday. Much of the waste will be consolidated at the site and capped with material designed to prevent pollutants from contaminating the surrounding soil and water.

Cyrus Western, the former Wyoming legislator who now oversees EPA’s Region 8 office headquartered in Denver, described the development as a “significant milestone” that will facilitate site redevelopment.

“In coordination with our federal, state, local and industry partners, EPA is advancing effective, protective solutions that safeguard human health and the environment,” Western said in a July 7 press release.

About half of the smelting facility’s total footprint — the most polluted portion — is incorporated in the Superfund site. Developers have big plans for other areas of the site outside the official Superfund boundary. A 78-acre parcel area south of Aluminum Drive called Teakettle Heights is slated for a 421-unit residential development that would include a mix of apartments, townhomes and single family homes. Due to contamination concerns, the project developer plans to tie into city water rather than using groundwater to supply the units with water.

The 647-page agreemen t between CFAC and EPA is not yet final. It will be subject to a 30-day public comment period and another round of review by the U.S. District Court in Missoula before it’s considered officially adopted. As with other sites on the EPA’s Superfund list, the analysis and clean-up for the CFAC site is more of a marathon than a sprint. It’s not uncommon for the EPA and the corporations that own Superfund sites — which include some of the most polluted landscapes in the country — to spend decades addressing contamination concerns associated with legacy industrial operations.

Columbia Falls became an aluminum smelting powerhouse in the 1950s due to its proximity to the hydroelectricity dams situated up and down the Columbia River Basin, which provided the site’s first owner, Anaconda Copper, with cheap, plentiful power.

Swiss commodities giant Glencore purchased the CFAC property in 1999. Glencore will put $57.6 million in a fund dedicated to the federal government’s “past and future response costs” as well as future costs the Montana Department of Environmental Quality incurs.

“The start of active cleanup activities is a positive step toward addressing environmental impacts at the site and reflects a shared commitment by CFAC and local, state and federal partners to position the area for long-term and sustainable reuse,” Glencore President Cheryl Driscoll said in the EPA press release.

A group of Flathead Valley citizens had pushed for the removal of the toxins (rather than the “waste in place” strategy that the EPA decided on), but the agency determined in its January 2025 record of decision that hauling the toxic material to an appropriate landfill would have incurred additional cost and risk.

The 1,340-acre site borders the Flathead River to the south, Cedar Creek Reservoir to the north, Teakettle Mountain to the east and Cedar Creek to the west. Water contamination has been a major concern for Flathead Valley residents eager to see the area cleaned up.

Tony Haag, president of Coalition for a Clean CFAC, told Montana Free Press he’s encouraged that remediation is progressing. He plans to dive into the particulars of the agreement, officially known as a consent decree, so he can offer detailed comments. And he has questions: Will the EPA keep the public “in the loop?” Does the federal government have a rigorous strategy for monitoring pollution concentrations to ensure that the cleanup is meeting its stated objectives?

“We’re sort of in a new phase now,” Haag said, referencing the anticipated initiation of remediation. “Our goal now is to monitor that and make sure it’s done well.”

Coalition for a Clean CFAC formed in 2024 to push EPA and Glencore to thoroughly clean up the site in order to support community health, enjoyment and economic development, and to protect the Flathead watershed. Haag said his group is urging the public to remain involved, noting that this may be one of the last opportunities they have to shape the Superfund site’s future.

EPA spokesperson Melissa Walther wrote in an email to MTFP that the agency anticipates CFAC will work on a design for remediation through the end of this year.

“Due to construction schedules, EPA is unable to project a final timeline,” she said. “But the work could be done within the next two to three years.”

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This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.