The plan for the Superfund site requires sufficient water in the Great Salt Lake to create a salt “cap” to seal in toxic waste.| Aug. 7, 2023, 12:00 p.m.in partnership with The Salt Lake Tribune, with support from the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at CUNY’s Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.
But the availability of and access to that water is far from certain given the dramatic contraction of the lake in recent years. Moreover, feasibility studies for possible contingency plans were never completed, Wangerud said. However, the act also empowers the EPA to find and identify the parties who caused the contamination. Where such parties can be found, the EPA is authorized to compel them to clean up the hazardous materials. If the responsible party fails to do so, the EPA may intervene directly, forcibly cleaning up the site itself while billing those responsible for the EPA’s work.
Setbacks notwithstanding, the EPA and US Magnesium came to an agreement about cleaning up the waste — or portions of it, at least — that was ratified by the courts on June 30, 2021. Under the terms of the agreement, U.S Magnesium will build a new waste management system that encases its lagoons in what Wangerud describes as a giant subterranean box to ensure that the chemicals it contains will never leak out into the ecosystem again.
US Magnesium is the largest producer of magnesium and the sole producer of primary magnesium, which is derived from raw rather than recycled materials, in the United States. The 51-year-old operation uses a process called electrolysis to split the salts in the Great Salt Lake into their atomic components, including sodium, potassium, magnesium and chlorine.