Soil cleanup at portion of Black Eagle Superfund site to start this week

Crews will this week start cleaning up yards filled with lead and arsenic in Black Eagle left over from decades of smelting and refining at the ACM Smelter and Refinery in an effort that will likely run through at least next summer.

The cleanup of soils at Operational Unit 1 of the Superfund site on the north side of Great Falls stems from a consent decree the site’s owner, Atlantic Richfield, agreed to last August and will cost an estimated $3.9 million, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA said the overall project will likely take two summers to finish, and only property owners who have already returned agreements for crews to access their property will have their soil replaced. Operable Unit 1 includes the Art Higgins Memorial Park and areas west of the former smelter and refinery site.

Teams will start on the southwestern side of Black Eagle and move north and east from there, working under individual site work plans specific for each property. They will remove soil contaminated with lead and arsenic and replace it with new soil and other landscaping that was there beforehand.

The EPA said the toxic soil will be dumped at the former smelter site for now and addressed as the future cleanup plans are developed.

Jordan Construction Inc. will lead the cleanup effort with oversight from EPA contractor HelioTech and Woodard and Curran, the contractor for Atlantic Richfield. Crews will work from 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Monday through Wednesday and from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursdays.

“Crews will be working through the summer and will clean as many yards as possible before cold weather sets in,” the EPA said in a news release. “Care will be taken to minimize disruptions, but residents should expect to see machinery and trucks in town.”

For more than 80 years starting in 1893, companies smelted and refined various heavy metals, including copper, zinc, arsenic and cadmium. Atlantic Richfield bought the site in 1977 and continued refining copper until 1980, when the plant closed.

But the refinery put lead, arsenic and other toxic metals into the air that contaminated soils nearby. Early on its operations, the companies also put tailings and slag either into the Missouri River or into the ground at the site.

After the plant closed in 1980, Atlantic Richfield undertook reclamation activities at the site over the next 20 years, and the EPA began investigating the site for contaminants in 2002, an investigation which expanded in 2007 and 2008.

That expanded investigation found about 45% of about 420 yards in Black Eagle had elevated lead and arsenic levels, some several times above federal and state standards. In 2011, the site was added to the Superfund National Priority List, leading to initial soil cleanups at the Moose Lodge just north of the smelter site and at the Art Higgins Memorial Park.

Yard soil sampling also expanded that year and further ecological investigations were done for the Missouri River, and in 2020, crews started replacing water and sewer lines along with some toxic soil. In 2021, the EPA finalized its Record of Decision that allows it to move forward with overseeing the soil removal and replacement.

Atlantic Richfield will bear the costs of the cleanup as a potentially responsible party. Leaders with the EPA and in Montana have said the start of the cleanup effort marks an important milestone in restoring the Superfund site.

“I’m hopeful that this consent decree will restore the natural resources and lead to a healthier and safer environment for the people of Great Falls,” U.S. Attorney for Montana Jesse Laslovich said in a statement.

Similar soil cleanup efforts are also underway in East Helena, as the EPA announced in February another $40 million in federal funding to clean up hundreds of yards whose soil are contaminated with lead and other heavy metals.

Anyone with questions about the cleanup is asked to call Luke Pokorny with Atlantic Richfield at 406-723-1832.