Red mud redux

in Technical Issues by Admin — September 17, 2009 at 1:44 pm | 2 comments

Editor’s note: I attended the September 16 meeting of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), the state institution with the notorious loco logo. After the meeting I heard several comments about my recent post that proposed using spent bauxite (red mud) for NOLA levees. Based on these conversations and a number of posted comments some followup is appropriate.

During post-meeting discussions I was told that: (1) alumina production at the former Kaiser plant has been on hold at least partly because of limited storage space for red mud; and (2) the Corps of Engineers is extremely wary of broaching the subject of using red mud for levee construction. The latter fear is presumably based, not on geotechnical suitability, but rather concerns over a potential environmental hornet’s nest.

A third comment I heard was that, although red mud could perhaps be safely used for flood protection levees in NOLA, the use of gypsum waste from phosphate fertilizer production is more problematic. This is because of public concern about naturally occurring low level U238 breakdown products from the phosphate ore imported from Florida. The gypsum waste, if enclosed inside a building, e.g., in the form of drywall, could emit radon gas at marginally significant levels.

I believe this to be a non-issue for a material that would be encapsulated within a flood levee. Nevertheless, rather than jeopardize the concept of the beneficial use of industrial waste streams,* I am happy to put the subject of gypsum waste on the back burner and focus solely on the subject of using red mud as a source of levee clay.

Before once again recommending considering red mud for NOLA levee construction, I’d like to assure readers of LaCoastPost.com that: (1) I own no stock in aluminum; and (2) my only stock in trade with serious value is a reputation for saying what I believe. Like it or not, every resident (and business) in south Louisiana sits cheek-to-jowl in a sinking lifeboat; i.e., we all have a stake in a successful “bailing” program.

Environmental purity will not float our boat and passing up opportunities to partner with industry in issues of mutual self interest is irrational, to say the least. I am puzzled by the un-American attitude that working with a for-profit entity necessitates sacrificing moral principle.

I wasn’t raised in the woods, however. In 1989-90, while writing hazardous waste permits in the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), I met with some fairly smarmy company shills.

Thus in 1993 I was prepared for Kaiser-bias when I first met with Jack Lashover, then plant manager for Kaiser Aluminum in Gramercy. After a number of meetings, we coastal scientists and EPA officials who perceived serious opportunities for partnering found Mr. Lashover to be professional, sincere and personally excited at the prospect of participating in solving coastal crises in his home state.

Thus I was personally embarrassed when a straightforward demonstration project that Kaiser agreed to co-sponsor with the state and feds devolved into a Rube Goldberg nightmare to which the secretary of DNR eventually ordered a coup de grace.

The original red mud project would have involved transporting a significant volume of iron-rich red mud to supplement disintegrating salt marshes many miles away. To me the project was logistically impractical but it represented a worthy precedent. I was more interested in the strategic geographic location of the plant adjacent to the dying Manchac swamp-forest. Red mud could be used to construct channel levees to guide river water across plant property to the swamp. Jack Lashover was open to this and other ideas but killing the original project ended the discussion.

On September 12, an article in the Advocate described the potential purchase of a large piece of property upriver from Gramercy in Ascension Parish adjacent to another alumina plant (Ormet), which is reportedly gearing up to increase production. The additional property would presumably be needed to stockpile more red mud – in another perpetual reservoir on a former orange grove.

I don’t know the exact boundaries of the property in question but when I read this article my first thought was that beyond the economic considerations the same two coastal synergies should be on the bargaining table: (1) sediment sources for levees; and (2) reviving dying swamp-forest with river water.

I would stake my life that state and parish economic development interests have never considered this or other coastal win-win prospects.

Len Bahr

*I haven’t mentioned the possibility of using pass through industrial cooling water for swamp-forest nourishment. This concept has been proposed for years by Mike Waldon, John Day and myself, among others.