Columbia Falls Aluminum did 54 years of cyanide and fluoride pollution. Now taxpayers have to pay for the cleanup.

The Receipts: What the Complaint Says in Black and White

These are not activist talking points. They come straight from the federal complaint filed against the company.

“EPA and MDEQ have determined that there is or may be an imminent and substantial endangerment to the public health or welfare or the environment because of actual and threatened releases of hazardous substances into the environment at and from the Site.” Paragraph 39, United States and State of Montana v. Columbia Falls Aluminum Company, LLC

• This is the government’s own official finding, not outside speculation: two separate agencies concluded the site could endanger the public right now.
• The word “imminent” is a specific legal trigger under federal Superfund law that authorizes emergency intervention, not a routine paperwork violation.

“Primary products and wastes from activities at the Site included spent potliner material, which contained fluoride, sodium, aluminum, and cyanide.” Paragraph 12, United States and State of Montana v. Columbia Falls Aluminum Company, LLC

• Cyanide, a lethal poison, was a documented byproduct of routine plant operations, not an accident or a one-time spill.
• This waste characterization is what qualifies the site for federal Superfund regulation in the first place.

“The selected remedy applies a strategy that emphasizes sitewide consolidation and encapsulation of contaminant sources to eliminate exposure pathways, reduces the transfer of contaminants of concern to groundwater, and prevents contaminant migration to the Flathead River.” Paragraph 28, United States and State of Montana v. Columbia Falls Aluminum Company, LLC

• The plan is to bury and seal the contamination in place. That is containment, not full removal of the waste.
• Naming the Flathead River specifically shows regulators see a live threat of the contamination spreading beyond the plant’s boundary.

Who Gets Hurt: Public Health and the Land

Public Health: What Regulators Are Admitting

This case centers on chemicals that don’t stay where you put them. Regulators have already gone on record about what that means for anyone living near the plant.

• Spent potliner waste from the plant’s operations contained cyanide, fluoride, sodium, and aluminum, generated as a normal byproduct of aluminum smelting.
• Wet scrubbers meant to control particulate fluoride air pollution only operated until the 1990s, leaving decades of the plant’s history with less air pollution control.
• Wastewater was discharged indirectly into groundwater under state-issued permits from the plant’s early years until it closed in 2009.
• EPA and Montana’s environmental regulator jointly determined the site poses an imminent and substantial endangerment to public health, safety, and welfare.

The Land, the Water, the Eight Landfills

The contamination did not stay confined to plant property. It spread across a 1,340-acre stretch of land bordered by a reservoir, a mountain, and a major river.

• The Site includes eight landfills, seven closed and one still open, plus leachate ponds and percolation ponds built to hold plant waste.
• Contaminated sediment in the South Percolation Ponds threatened to erode into the Flathead River, forcing an emergency removal action the company completed in May 2021.
• The Site sits between Cedar Creek Reservoir, Teakettle Mountain, the Flathead River, and Cedar Creek, putting multiple waterways within reach of the contamination.
• EPA placed the Site on the National Priorities List, the federal registry reserved for the country’s most contaminated locations, in September 2016.

Who Pays? Following the Cost

Before a single dollar comes out of the company’s pocket, someone else has already been paying.

• The United States government has incurred, and will continue to incur, response costs investigating and addressing the contamination at the Site.
• The State of Montana has incurred, and will continue to incur, its own remedial action costs responding to the same contamination.
• The lawsuit exists because the public has already fronted money the company was legally responsible for. The government is now in court trying to get it back.

This Is the System Working as Intended

Nothing about this case required a scandal or a whistleblower to unfold the way it did. The gap between when the plant started generating cyanide waste and when the government finally sued over it tells its own story.

What a Legitimate Fix Looks Like

This case shows what happens when cleanup law depends on years of process before a company is forced to pay: the public carries the cost in the meantime.

What Now?

Columbia Falls Aluminum Company, LLC is now the named defendant in federal court over this site. Here is who is tracking it, and how you can too.

• EPA: the federal agency that placed the Site on the National Priorities List and selected the cleanup remedy.
• Montana Department of Environmental Quality: the state agency co-litigating the case and overseeing remedial action costs.
• U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division: the federal office prosecuting the cost-recovery case in court.
• Track Case No. 9:26-cv-00099-KLD in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana, Missoula Division, for updates on whether the company is made to pay.
• Contact Montana DEQ directly to ask what independent water and soil monitoring is happening in the Flathead River watershed while the case proceeds.