Arkansas City Settles on Aluminum Site Cleanup

The city of Stamps, AR, has reached a settlement over the cleanup of a closed secondary aluminum smelter.

Around 14 companies, including Alcoa, Reynolds Aluminum, and Alumax, which contracted with Red River Aluminum to perform secondary smelting, have agreed to pay $1.4 million to the city for remediation of the site.

Red River, which operated from the late 1980s through 1999 before closing, had left a significant amount of contaminants, including salt cakes, at the site when it closed after failing to comply with federal EPA requirements.

Hank Bates, an attorney who represented the city, said that the parties reached an agreement last week before the case went to trial. The payment follows several other agencies, which have invested time and money to do some cleanup of the 9 acre site.

The payment follows the EPA spending roughly $2 million in CERCLA funds to stabilize the site, while the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality "has been babysitting the site," Bates said.

According to local reports, around 200,000 cubic yards of salt cake accumulated on the site when the plant was operational.