Public weighs in on US Mag EPA listing

Dec 08, 2008 | 10:17 AM | Tom Jennemann

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has closed the public comment period on the merits of the US Magnesium LLC facility in Tooele County, Utah, being placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) of federal Superfund sites.

If the EPA approves the listing, it would make the cleanup of the Tooele County magnesium plant a high priority nationally and would enable the EPA and the Utah Department of Environmental Quality to compel US Magnesium to pay for some or all of the cleanup. The site, 40 miles from Salt Lake City, where the company has its headquarters, produces 43,000 tonnes of magnesium per year.

The EPA said that contaminants at the site include heavy metals, acidic wastewater, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dioxins/furans, hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The EPA alleges that waterfowl have died after coming into contact with the contamination, and said that bird egg studies have documented concentrations of PCB and HCB in all eggs at or near the site.....