Cascade County Commissioners voted unanimously to accept a $51,424 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to support its ongoing efforts at the former Anaconda Mining Company’s smelter and refinery superfund site in the Black Eagle area.
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.
Superfund cleanup work starts in Black Eagle this month
The funding will support the ongoing effort toward remediation at the superfund site, including coordination on the remedial design at OU-1 as it relates to the public use of the railroad corridor; comment on remedial investigation at OU-2 as it relates to public use; collaboration with the contractor to expedite remedial action under EPA regulations; technical assistance; and more.
The county contracted with Water and Environmental Technologies, or WET, in 2017 to assist with developing land use plans for the site.
The EPA grant is a continuation of the county’s work with WET, but with some sight modifications due to the EPA’s process and timelines, according to Sandy Johnson, the county’s superfund manager, who is retiring this year.
The remediation at OU-2 is still likely several years away, Johnson said, but in the new cooperative agreement, the county is focusing on trying to expedite the remediation and redevelopment of county parcels within that area and would like to start implementing the land use plan WET developed several years ago.
Discussions continuing about possible home for Children’s Museum in Black Eagle [2023]
She said they’re working with the involved agencies to determine if that can be done administratively rather than waiting for the formal record of decision to be issued.
The parcel the county is most interested in moving on is the one below the Stray Moose building, which is being considered for the future site of the Montana Children’s Museum, but county officials said the museum staff had been mum on that project for some time now.
Johnson said it’s unknown what Atlantic Richfield Company’s plans are for their property while the remedial investigation continues.
Remediation work in OU-1, which is Black Eagle residential areas, began in May.
ARCO contracted with Woodward and Curran, Inc. for the work that is required by the EPA.
As of July 31, 23 years had been remediated with another five in progress.
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.
Mark Brooke if the technical advisor for the Black Eagle community hired through a separate EPA grant said in an email update to Black Eagle residents that crews will work as long as the weather holds this year and pick back up after the spring thaw next year.
ARCO identified the need for additional cover soil on the project and collected samples from a new soil source location called the Sun River pit in addition to the previously approved Shumaker stockpile.
The soils at the Sun River pit meet the project specifications and have average concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead and zinc below the applicable acceptance criteria for these metals, Brooke wrote.
The EPA approved the Sun River pit soils for use in the Black Eagle project on Aug. 2, Brooke wrote.
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.
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.
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 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 year.
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.
