Atlantic Richfield Company, or ARCO, has contracted with Woodard and Curran, Inc., and will start Superfund-
related remediation in Black Eagle in early May.

The remediation work is required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Work is expected to run through October.

Work will involve heavy equipment work on properties which requires periodically entering/travelling along North River Road, Old Havre Highway aka 15th Street North, Smelter Avenue Northeast, Wire Mill Road, Black Eagle Road, Rainbow Dam Road, and through the community of Black Eagle.

Pedestrians are asked to avoid areas of construction for safety reasons.

Discussions continuing about possible home for Children’s Museum in Black Eagle [2023]

Traffic control measures will be implemented, and motorists are asked to exercise caution while traveling in these areas, according to the contractor.

Minor delays may be experienced.

Those in the area are asked to be aware of increased construction traffic working adjacent to and traveling on these public rights-of-way from 7 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Call Luke Pokorny with ARCO at 406-723-1832 for questions or concerns.

Public comment sought on cleanup plan for portion of former smelter site [2023]

Last fall, a federal judge signed the consent decree for cleanup of Operational Unit 1 of the former smelter site. OU1 is largely residential in Black Eagle.

Sandy Johnson, the county’s superfund coordinator, told the county health board in December that the process will remove contaminated soils from about 175 residential yards.

Plans to cleanup the former smelter site in Black Eagle have been in the works for years and officials have been waiting on the consent decree for awhile.

County, agencies discussing details for potential use of Black Eagle site for Children’s Museum [2023]

The former smelting and refining facility, referred to as the Great Falls Refinery, operated for nearly 80 years near the unincorporated community of Black Eagle. The smelter and refinery’s operations produced large quantities of slag, tailings, flue dust and other smelter and refinery wastes containing lead, arsenic and other metals that contaminated soil, groundwater and surface water resources at the site, according to the EPA.

The EPA placed the site on the Superfund program’s National Priority List in March 2011.

The consent decree requires Atlantic Richfield to implement remedial design and remedial action in the community soils portion of one of the site’s three operable units, OU1, at an estimated cost of $2,286,000 and pay $464,475.12 for past response costs incurred by EPA through Sept. 30, 2022.

County approves rezone for Black Eagle site eyed for future Children’s Museum home [2023]

The site has three operable units:

OU-1 includes Art Higgins Memorial Park and the Black Eagle neighborhoods west of the former ACM property.

OU-2 is the former ACM site and stack area, Anaconda Golf Course and land along the river owned by Montana State, Northwestern Energy and Cascade County.

OU-3 is the Missouri River from 15th Street Bridge downriver to Fort Benton.

The consent decree was the final EPA process needed before ARCO could begin cleanup, starting with the remedial design plans for each property, then the cleanup, Johnson told The Electric last week.

County selects prefered land use plan for former smelter site [2021]

Some remediation work was done in the Copper Creek subdivision behind the Moose Lodge years ago, Johnson said, and some soils were removed a few years ago when the water and sewer district was doing line replacements just above the Art Higgins Memorial Park in Black Eagle.

There are discussions currently about the Children’s Museum of Montana moving into the Stray Moose building, which is privately owned but on land owned by the county. That property is in OU2.

In 2020, Cascade County Commissioners selected their preferred design for cleanup of the OU1 site.

A 2019 county press release stated, “design ideas can help with the cleanup strategies outlined in the EPA’s Management Plan and might even help fund park improvements through cleanup activities,” according to a county release.

County selects preferred design option for Art Higgins Memorial Park [2020]

One of the goals in developing plans for future development and land use is to offer suggestions to the EPA for their cleanup plan and ideally, reduce costs if some development ideas can be implemented through the cleanup process.

The EPA announced the agreement in late August 2023 and it was filed in federal court in Great Falls.

Under Montana state law, the Department of Environmental Quality is separately required to put the proposed consent decree out for public comment, a period that ran concurrently with the federal public comment period.

Information about operable units, past time-critical cleanup efforts, and the site’s history is available on the EPA Superfund site page.