LDEQ Puts Atalco Refinery on Notice for ‘Red Mud’ Leaks. Fines to Be Determined

A River Parishes refinery is under heightened scrutiny from state regulators after it unlawfully discharged industrial waste containing arsenic, cadmium, chromium and other toxic heavy metals into public areas and waterways.

Atlantic Alumina, also known as Atalco, is facing dozens of environmental violations stemming from  breaches that occurred last year in the giant levees of its waste containment lakes at its aluminum oxide refinery near Gramercy. The facility is the only one remaining in the United States that refines bauxite into aluminum oxide (alumina), a process that produces a caustic red slurry waste the company stores in several manmade lakes near the St. James-St. John the Baptist parish line.

In August, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality issued the company a “Notice of Potential Penalty” compliance order that detailed the violations state officials documented during a series of inspections that began over a year ago. Now, the company must also address a slate of new requirements LDEQ has tacked onto Atalco’s solid waste permit renewal application, records show.