State environmental regulators have found extra air pollution discharges from the waste containment lakes on the Atlantic Alumina facility close to Gramercy, simply months after citing the refinery for spewing poisonous waste containing arsenic, cadmium, chromium and different heavy metals into state waters.

The Louisiana Division of Environmental High quality carried out a compliance analysis Might 29 at Atlantic Alumina, also called Atalco, and documented 9 violations on the plant, in line with public information accessible on the company’s web site.

The corporate didn’t reply to a request for remark Thursday.

A number of of the brand new violations are much like ones detailed in a current Illuminator investigation into air pollution discharges that occurred on the refinery final 12 months, which neither residents nor native officers had been absolutely conscious of on the time. These discharges concerned an industrial “purple mud” byproduct of the alumina refining course of that contained toxic heavy metals and caustic chemical compounds that eroded via big levees surrounding the power’s waste containment lakes and spilled onto public property.

The poisonous waste killed vegetation and contaminated the land alongside its path to a public drainage system that flows to the Blind River Swamp of Lake Maurepas, in line with a 606-page LDEQ inspection report finalized in March. Lab evaluation of water samples collected from that public ditch contained arsenic at a focus almost 1,400% increased than the utmost security threshold set by the EPA.

Throughout their Might 29 inspection, LDEQ officers cited Atalco once more for failing to take care of its levees, permitting excessive grass to obscure the lakes and permitting chemical waste to overflow the embankments.

“A number of discharges from Crimson Mud Lake 3 into Outfall 003,” the LDEQ inspector wrote in his area report. Outfall 003 refers to a drainage system designed to gather rain and floor water runoff from a number of the levees.

Atalco’s failure to take care of its system of 50-foot-high containment levees was the first reason behind the levee breaks and poisonous waste discharges that occurred final summer season and continued via the rest of the 12 months, in line with the state and federal inspectors who documented the incident.

Moreover, throughout their most up-to-date go to to the power, the LDEQ inspectors found a diesel tank leaking right into a separate outfall that drains into the Mississippi River. That very same ditch additionally contained a red-orange coloured liquid with a petrochemical rainbow sheen on the floor and a noticeable “diesel odor current,” in line with the information.

State inspectors discovered an analogous rust-colored liquid in a separate drainage pipe and found diesel leaking from a pump close to a 3rd drainage system, Outfall 004. The information present they took pH readings from a number of drains and detected ranges in extra of 9, which signifies the probably presence of a caustic chemical.

LDEQ’s investigation into the power, which started final summer season following the levee breaches, stays ongoing. Up to now, no enforcement penalties have been levied in opposition to the corporate.

“The corporate has been cooperating with our employees via the investigation and is actively working towards compliance,” LDEQ spokesman Matthew Day stated in an electronic mail.

Atalco’s refinery occupies roughly 3 sq. miles of land the place St. James and St. John the Baptist parishes meet on the Mississippi River’s east financial institution. Atalco sells refined alumina to metallic smelters that make completed aluminum. Opened in 1958 as Kaiser Aluminum, the Gramercy facility is the one remaining bauxite refinery in the USA and subsequently the nation’s solely home supply of a important metallic feedstock.

Atalco produced 669,261 metric tons of aluminum oxide final 12 months, state information present. For each ton of aluminum produced from Atalco’s work, bauxite refining generates an estimated 2.5 tons of waste byproduct, in line with the U.S. Environmental Safety Company.