Bill Johnson has witnessed the extent of US Magnesium’s pollution up close.
He’s seen the wastewater pond that was so acidic it bubbled like a cauldron. He noted where the corrosive liquid had eaten through the soil beneath, and where it burned through earthen barriers and spilled into the neighboring public lands near Utah’s Great Salt Lake.
When staff at the company’s facility gave him a safety lecture, Johnson said he was told to remove any corrective lenses. “The chlorine emissions” from the nearby plant, he explained in an interview — “if the wind direction changes and brings that down to ground level, it could melt your contacts.”
Johnson, a geology professor at the University of Utah who has done extensive work studying the Great Salt Lake, was brought on as a technical advisor in 2013 to help oversee the Superfund cleanup process at the company’s Rowley plant. That work began in 2009 but it hasn’t progressed much beyond collecting samples and drafting plans to address the pollution.
