A contractor hired to build a pollution control wall at the active superfund site created and controlled by US Magnesium sued the company this month, alleging the mining company failed to pay any of what it owed for work on the project.
US Magnesium owes the Colorado-based contractor Forgen $5.8 million, plus interest, the firm wrote in a complaint filed on Oct. 4.
The mining company hired Forgen to construct a wall below ground that would block contaminants from leaching into the Great Salt Lake. That work stopped in November after Forgen said it failed to receive any of the invoices it filed for the work.
“While Forgen anticipated a winter shutdown and a return to work in the Spring of 2024, Forgen, again, is not in a position to return to the Project without having received payment of these past due amounts,” the company wrote in an email to US Magnesium in late April.
The company planned to retreat from the site by July, leaving in question the status of a wall that was designed to block dangerous pollutants from spreading.
The wall is part of an effort guided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to prevent the waste and byproducts created by US Magnesium’s mining of salt on the shores of the Great Salt Lake from further polluting the area, according to the Utah Investigative Journalism Project.
US Magnesium creates some of the purest magnesium in the world by breaking down salt from the Great Salt Lake and extracting the chemical, the outlet reported. The process creates cancer-causing organochlorines like hexachlorobenzene.
The EPA designated the site a superfund site in 2009 in a rare attempt to clean up a site that remains operational. (Superfund sites are often abandoned and have no apparent party to pay for and conduct the work to make a contaminated area safe again.)
According to its complaint, Forgen “furnished all supervision, labor, tools, supplies, equipment, services, materials and other incidentals and performed all the work to timely and competently build an underground pollution mitigation wall at US Magnesium’s lithium mine” about 40 miles west of Salt Lake City.
US Magnesium submitted a $11.9 million purchase order in June 2023, the complaint said.
Forgen kicked off work shortly after, but alleges it stopped in November after US Magnesium failed to pay the first five consecutive invoices for work.
In May 2024, Forgen filed a lien for $3 million against US Magnesium.
The wall likely remains unfinished, as Forgen retained the rights to the contract despite the payment dispute.
US Magnesium didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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